Methods for enhanced pdcch monitoring

ABSTRACT

A method for physical downlink control channel (PD-CCH) monitoring by user equipment (UE includes receiving a specification indicative of a monitoring pattern for a search space set including a plurality of slots. The monitoring pattern includes one or more monitoring spans within the search space set. Each of the one or more monitoring spans is associated with a set of parameters defining that particular monitoring span. The method includes selecting at least one monitoring span of the one or more monitoring spans. The method includes assigning the UE to monitor the at least one monitoring span. The method includes performing, by the UE, PDCCH monitoring during the selected at least one monitoring span.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 62/828,358, titled METHODS FOR ENHANCED PDCCH MONITORING filed Apr.2, 2019, the entire content of which is incorporated herein byreference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates generally to timing adjustment of uplinktransmissions in wireless communications.

BACKGROUND

Wireless communication systems are rapidly growing in usage. Further,wireless communication technology has evolved from voice-onlycommunications to also include the transmission of data, such asInternet and multimedia content, to a variety of devices. To accommodatea growing number of devices communicating both voice and data signals,many wireless communication systems share the available communicationchannel resources among devices.

SUMMARY

Mobile communication has evolved significantly from early voice systemsto today's highly sophisticated integrated communication platform. Thenext generation wireless communication system, 5G, or new radio (NR)will provide access to information and sharing of data anywhere, anytimeby various users and applications. NR is expected to be a unifiednetwork/system that target to meet vastly different and sometimeconflicting performance dimensions and services. Such diversemulti-dimensional requirements are driven by different services andapplications. In general, NR will evolve based on 3GPP LTE-Advanced withadditional potential new Radio Access Technologies (RATs) to enrichpeople lives with better, simple and seamless wireless connectivitysolutions. NR will enable everything connected by wireless and deliverfast, rich contents and services.

To support ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) serviceswhich target 1 ms latency and 99.999% reliability, control and sharedchannels should employ advanced transmission schemes which maximizediversity and energy within a very short transmission interval. In thatsense, reliability of PDCCH is critical to provide both DL and ULoperation. Recently, support of 16 CCE per decoding candidate was agreedthat brings improved coverage for the considered eMBB use cases.However, in order to efficiently support URLLC requirements, furtherenhancements to NR PDCCH and DCI format designs are expected.

This document describes various methods related to PDCCH monitoringenhancements, achieving more flexibility in terms of monitoring spansand scheduling opportunities, as well as better adaptation to differenttraffic patterns and requirements, especially corresponding to URLLCservices. This document describes various methods related to PDCCHmonitoring enhancements, achieving more flexibility in terms ofmonitoring spans and scheduling opportunities, as well as betteradaptation to different traffic patterns and requirements, especiallycorresponding to URLLC services.

In a general aspect, a process for physical downlink control channel(PDCCH) monitoring by user equipment (UE) includes receiving aspecification indicative of a monitoring pattern for a search space setincluding a plurality of slots. The monitoring pattern includes one ormore monitoring spans within the search space set, each of the one ormore monitoring spans being associated with a set of parameters definingthat particular monitoring span. The process includes selecting at leastone monitoring span of the one or more monitoring spans. The processincludes assigning the UE to monitor the at least one monitoring span.The process includes performing, by the UE, PDCCH monitoring during theselected at least one monitoring span.

In some implementations, each of the monitoring spans is indicative of amonitoring pattern of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)symbols within a slot. In some implementations, a PDCCH control resourceset (CORESET) is mapped beyond the selected at least one monitoringspan. A first symbol of the CORESET corresponding to a configuredmonitoring occasion (MO) for the search space set is included within themonitoring span, and where the PDCCH does not cross a boundary of theslot.

In some implementations, a number of blind decodings (BDs) or controlchannel elements (CCEs) corresponding to the PDCCH MO is counted as partof the monitoring span including the first symbol corresponding to theMO. In some implementations, the monitoring pattern specifies amonitoring gap of a particular number of OFDM symbols with the slot.

In some implementations, a maximum duration of a monitoring span isdefined by the set of parameters for that monitoring span. The maximumduration is a fixed number of OFDM symbols. For example, the maximumduration of the monitoring span is 3 OFDM symbols.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for the one or moremonitoring spans specifies one or both of non-uniform monitoringoccasions (MOs) and triggered MOs. In some implementations, the set ofparameters for each the one or more monitoring spans is configured tolimit a number of CCEs, BDs, or both CCEs and BDs during the PDCCHmonitoring of a slot to below a maximum number.

In some implementations, the maximum number of CCEs, BDs or both CCEsand BDs during the PDCCH monitoring of the slot is based on a maximumnumber of non-overlapping CCEs or BDs and a maximum number ofnon-overlapping monitoring spans supported by the UE within a durationof the slot. In some implementations, the specification furthercomprises a minimum number of BDs or CCEs for the slot, and where theBDs or CCEs are distributed among the one or more monitoring spans inthe slot.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for each of the one ormore monitoring spans define the respective monitoring span with respectto a slot boundary, and where a first symbol of the particularmonitoring span corresponds to a symbol in which the UE is configured tomonitor PDCCH. In some implementations, the set of parameters for theparticular monitoring span include a dropping rule that is based on alocation of the particular monitoring span within a slot of the searchspace set. In some implementations, the set of parameters assigns ahighest priority to a monitoring span within a first three symbols ofthe slot. In some implementations, the set of parameters for theparticular monitoring span includes a dropping rule that is based on atype of the search space set, and where the type of the search space setis one of common search space (CSS) or UE-search space (UE-SS).

In some implementations, the actions include receiving the specificationfrom a next generation node (gNB). The actions include configuring themonitoring for an ultra-reliable and low latency (URLLC) service.

A UE for performing physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoringincludes one or more processing devices and a memory configured to storeinstructions that when executed cause the one or more processing deviceto perform operations. The operations include receiving a specificationindicative of a monitoring pattern for a search space set including aplurality of slots. The monitoring pattern includes one or moremonitoring spans within the search space set. Each of the one or moremonitoring spans is associated with a set of parameters defining thatparticular monitoring span. The operations include selecting at leastone monitoring span of the one or more monitoring spans. The operationsinclude assigning the at least one monitoring span for monitoring. Theoperations include performing, by the UE, PDCCH monitoring during theselected at least one monitoring span.

In some implementations, each of the monitoring spans is indicative of amonitoring pattern of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)symbols within a slot. A PDCCH control resource set (CORESET) is mappedbeyond the selected at least one monitoring span. A first symbol of theCORESET corresponding to a configured monitoring occasion (MO) for thesearch space set is included within the monitoring span, and the PDCCHdoes not cross a boundary of the slot. A number of blind decodings (BDs)or control channel elements (CCEs) corresponding to the PDCCH MO iscounted as part of the monitoring span including the first symbolcorresponding to the MO.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for each the one or moremonitoring spans is configured to limit a number of CCEs, BDs, or bothCCEs and BDs during the PDCCH monitoring of a slot to below a maximumnumber. In some implementations, the maximum number of CCEs, BDs or bothCCEs and BDs during the PDCCH monitoring of the slot is based on amaximum number of non-overlapping CCEs or BDs and a maximum number ofnon-overlapping monitoring spans supported by the UE within a durationof the slot.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for the particularmonitoring span include a dropping rule that is based on a location ofthe particular monitoring span within a slot of the search space set. Insome implementations, the set of parameters assigns a highest priorityto a monitoring span within a first three symbols of the slot.

The details of one or more implementations are set forth in theaccompanying drawings and the description below. Other features andadvantages will be apparent from the description and drawings, and fromthe claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1-3 illustrate example wireless communication systems.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a platform or device.

FIG. 6 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry and radiofront end circuitry.

FIG. 7 illustrates example components of cellular communicationcircuitry.

FIG. 8 illustrates example protocol functions that may be implemented inwireless communication systems.

FIG. 9 illustrates example components of a core network.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example system to support network functionvirtualization.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example computer system.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of a PDCCH search space set.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example process for enhanced PDCCH monitoring.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This document describes various methods related to PDCCH monitoringenhancements, achieving more flexibility in terms of monitoring spansand scheduling opportunities, as well as better adaptation to differenttraffic patterns and requirements, especially corresponding to URLLCservices. This document describes various methods related to PDCCHmonitoring enhancements, achieving more flexibility in terms ofmonitoring spans and scheduling opportunities, as well as betteradaptation to different traffic patterns and requirements, especiallycorresponding to URLLC services.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example wireless communication system 100. Forpurposes of convenience and without limitation, the example system 100is described in the context of the LTE and 5G NR communication standardsas defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technicalspecifications. However, the technology described herein may beimplemented in other communication systems using other communicationstandards, such as other 3GPP standards or IEEE 802.16 protocols (e.g.,WMAN or WiMAX), among others.

The system 100 includes UE 101 a and UE 101 b (collectively referred toas the “UEs 101”). In this example, the UEs 101 are illustrated assmartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devicesconnectable to one or more cellular networks). In other examples, any ofthe UEs 101 may include other mobile or non-mobile computing devices,such as consumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones,feature phones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personaldigital assistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers,laptop computers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment(ICE) devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD)devices, onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment(DME), mobile data terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System(EEMS), electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/enginecontrol modules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, controlmodules, engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart”appliances, machine-type communications (MTC) devices,machine-to-machine (M2M) devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, orcombinations of them, among others.

In some examples, any of the UEs 101 may be IoT UEs, which can include anetwork access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizingshort-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such asM2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device using, forexample, a public land mobile network (PLMN), proximity services(ProSe), device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, IoTnetworks, or combinations of them, among others. The M2M or MTC exchangeof data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT networkdescribes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquelyidentifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internetinfrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may executebackground applications (e.g., keep-alive messages or status updates) tofacilitate the connections of the IoT network.

The UEs 101 are configured to connect (e.g., communicatively couple)with an access network (AN) or radio access network (RAN) 110. In someexamples, the RAN 110 may be a next generation RAN (NG RAN), an evolvedUMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), or a legacy RAN, suchas a UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) or a GSM EDGE radioaccess network (GERAN). As used herein, the term “NG RAN” may refer to aRAN 110 that operates in a 5G NR system 100, and the term “E-UTRAN” mayrefer to a RAN 110 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100.

To connect to the RAN 110, the UEs 101 utilize connections (or channels)103 and 104, respectively, each of which may include a physicalcommunications interface or layer, as described below. In this example,the connections 103 and 104 are illustrated as an air interface toenable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellularcommunications protocols, such as a global system for mobilecommunications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA)network protocol, a push-to-talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over cellular(POC) protocol, a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS)protocol, a 3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G NR protocol, or combinations ofthem, among other communication protocols. In some examples, the UEs 101may directly exchange communication data using an interface 105, such asa ProSe interface. The interface 105 may alternatively be referred to asa sidelink interface 105 and may include one or more logical channels,such as a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelinkshared channel (PSSCH), a physical sidelink downlink channel (PSDCH), ora physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH), or combinations of them,among others.

The UE 101 b is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP)106 (also referred to as “WLAN node 106,” “WLAN 106,” “WLAN Termination106,” “WT 106” or the like) using a connection 107. The connection 107can include a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistentwith any IEEE 802.11 protocol, in which the AP 106 would include awireless fidelity (Wi-Fi®) router. In this example, the AP 106 is shownto be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core networkof the wireless system, as described in further detail below. In variousexamples, the UE 101 b, RAN 110, and AP 106 may be configured to useLTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA) operation or LTW/WLAN radio level integrationwith IPsec tunnel (LWIP) operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE101 b in RRC_CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node 111 a, 111 b toutilize radio resources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve theUE 101 b using WLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 107) using IPsecprotocol tunneling to authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IPpackets) sent over the connection 107. IPsec tunneling may includeencapsulating the entirety of original IP packets and adding a newpacket header, thereby protecting the original header of the IP packets.

The RAN 110 can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 111 a and 111b (collectively referred to as “RAN nodes 111” or “RAN node 111”) thatenable the connections 103 and 104. As used herein, the terms “accessnode,” “access point,” or the like may describe equipment that providesthe radio baseband functions for data or voice connectivity, or both,between a network and one or more users. These access nodes can bereferred to as base stations (BS), gNodeBs, gNBs, eNodeBs, eNBs, NodeBs,RAN nodes, rode side units (RSUs), transmission reception points (TRxPsor TRPs), and the link, and can include ground stations (e.g.,terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coveragewithin a geographic area (e.g., a cell), among others. As used herein,the term “NG RAN node” may refer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an5G NR system 100 (for example, a gNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” mayrefer to a RAN node 111 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 100 (e.g.,an eNB). In some examples, the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented as oneor more of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station,or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocells orother like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity,or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In some examples, some or all of the RAN nodes 111 may be implemented asone or more software entities running on server computers as part of avirtual network, which may be referred to as a cloud RAN (CRAN) or avirtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). The CRAN or vBBUP may implement aRAN function split, such as a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)split in which radio resource control (RRC) and PDCP layers are operatedby the CRAN/vBBUP and other layer two (e.g., data link layer) protocolentities are operated by individual RAN nodes 111; a medium accesscontrol (MAC)/physical layer (PHY) split in which RRC, PDCP, MAC, andradio link control (RLC) layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and thePHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 111; or a “lower PHY”split in which RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers and upper portions of thePHY layer are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and lower portions of the PHYlayer are operated by individual RAN nodes 111. This virtualizedframework allows the freed-up processor cores of the RAN nodes 111 toperform, for example, other virtualized applications. In some examples,an individual RAN node 111 may represent individual gNB distributedunits (DUs) that are connected to a gNB central unit (CU) usingindividual F1 interfaces (not shown in FIG. 1). In some examples, thegNB-DUs may include one or more remote radio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g.,FIG. 4), and the gNB-CU may be operated by a server that is located inthe RAN 110 (not shown) or by a server pool in a similar manner as theCRAN/vBBUP. Additionally or alternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes111 may be next generation eNBs (ng-eNBs), including RAN nodes thatprovide E-UTRA user plane and control plane protocol terminations towardthe UEs 101, and are connected to a 5G core network (e.g., core network120) using a next generation interface.

In vehicle-to-everything (V2X) scenarios, one or more of the RAN nodes111 may be or act as RSUs. The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” refers toany transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. ARSU may be implemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (orrelatively stationary) UE, where a RSU implemented in or by a UE may bereferred to as a “UE-type RSU,” a RSU implemented in or by an eNB may bereferred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” a RSU implemented in or by a gNB maybe referred to as a “gNB-type RSU,” and the like. In some examples, anRSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry locatedon a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs101 (vUEs 101). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitryto store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as wellas applications or other software to sense and control ongoing vehicularand pedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct ShortRange Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latencycommunications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance,traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSUmay operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned lowlatency communications, as well as other cellular communicationsservices. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fihotspot (2.4 GHz band) or provide connectivity to one or more cellularnetworks to provide uplink and downlink communications, or both. Thecomputing device(s) and some or all of the radiofrequency circuitry ofthe RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoorinstallation, and may include a network interface controller to providea wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or abackhaul network, or both.

Any of the RAN nodes 111 can terminate the air interface protocol andcan be the first point of contact for the UEs 101. In some examples, anyof the RAN nodes 111 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN110 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC)functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamicradio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobilitymanagement.

In some examples, the UEs 101 can be configured to communicate usingorthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication signalswith each other or with any of the RAN nodes 111 over a multicarriercommunication channel in accordance with various communicationtechniques, such as, but not limited to, OFDMA communication techniques(e.g., for downlink communications) or SC-FDMA communication techniques(e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although thescope of the techniques described here not limited in this respect. TheOFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some examples, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlinktransmissions from any of the RAN nodes 111 to the UEs 101, while uplinktransmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be atime-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resourcegrid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Sucha time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDMsystems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Eachcolumn and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symboland one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource gridin the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. Thesmallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resourceelement. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, whichdescribe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements.Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in thefrequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resourcesthat currently can be allocated. There are several different physicaldownlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

In some examples, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 communicate (e.g.,transmit and receive) data over a licensed medium (also referred to asthe “licensed spectrum” or the “licensed band”) and an unlicensed sharedmedium (also referred to as the “unlicensed spectrum” or the “unlicensedband”). The licensed spectrum may include channels that operate in thefrequency range of approximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz,whereas the unlicensed spectrum may include the 5 GHz band.

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111may operate using license assisted access (LAA), enhanced-LAA (eLAA), orfurther enhanced-LAA (feLAA) mechanisms. In these implementations, theUEs 101 and the RAN nodes 111 may perform one or more knownmedium-sensing operations or carrier-sensing operations, or both, todetermine whether one or more channels in the unlicensed spectrum areunavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting in theunlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may beperformed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol. LBT is amechanism in which equipment (for example, UEs 101, RAN nodes 111)senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency) andtransmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specificchannel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensingoperation may include clear channel assessment (CCA), which uses energydetection to determine the presence or absence of other signals on achannel in order to determine if a channel is occupied or clear. ThisLBT mechanism allows cellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbentsystems in the unlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. Energydetection may include sensing RF energy across an intended transmissionband for a period of time and comparing the sensed RF energy to apredefined or configured threshold.

The incumbent systems in the 5 GHz band can be WLANs based on IEEE802.11 technologies. WLAN employs a contention-based channel accessmechanism (e.g., CSMA with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA)). In someexamples, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobile station (MS), such as UE 101,AP 106, or the like) intends to transmit, the WLAN node may firstperform CCA before transmission. Additionally, a backoff mechanism isused to avoid collisions in situations where more than one WLAN nodesenses the channel as idle and transmits at the same time. The backoffmechanism may be a counter that is drawn randomly within the contentionwindow size (CWS), which is increased exponentially upon the occurrenceof collision and reset to a minimum value as the transmission succeeds.In some examples, the LBT mechanism designed for LAA is similar to theCSMA/CA of WLAN. In some examples, the LBT procedure for DL or ULtransmission bursts, including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions,respectively, may have an LAA contention window that is variable inlength between X and Y extended CAA (ECCA) slots, where X and Y areminimum and maximum values for the CWSs for LAA. In one example, theminimum CWS for an LAA transmission may be 9 microseconds (μs); however,the size of the CWS and a maximum channel occupancy time (for example, atransmission burst) may be based on governmental regulatoryrequirements.

In some examples, the LAA mechanisms are built on carrier aggregationtechnologies of LTE-Advanced systems. In CA, each aggregated carrier isreferred to as a component carrier. In some examples, a componentcarrier may have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz, and amaximum of five component carriers can be aggregated to provide amaximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In frequency division duplex(FDD) systems, the number of aggregated carriers can be different for DLand UL. For example, the number of UL component carriers can be equal toor lower than the number of DL component carriers. In some cases,individual component carriers can have a different bandwidth than othercomponent carriers. In time division duplex (TDD) systems, the number ofcomponent carriers as well as the bandwidths of each component carrieris usually the same for DL and UL.

Carrier aggregation can also include individual serving cells to provideindividual component carriers. The coverage of the serving cells maydiffer, for example, because component carriers on different frequencybands may experience different path loss. A primary service cell (PCell)may provide a primary component carrier for both UL and DL, and mayhandle RRC and non-access stratum (NAS) related activities. The otherserving cells are referred to as secondary component carriers (SCells),and each SCell may provide an individual secondary component carrier forboth UL and DL. The secondary component carriers may be added andremoved as required, while changing the primary component carrier mayrequire the UE 101 to undergo a handover. In LAA, eLAA, and feLAA, someor all of the SCells may operate in the unlicensed spectrum (referred toas “LAA SCells”), and the LAA SCells are assisted by a PCell operatingin the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configured with more than one LAASCell, the UE may receive UL grants on the configured LAA SCellsindicating different PUSCH starting positions within a same subframe.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 101.The PDCCH carries information about the transport format and resourceallocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It mayalso inform the UEs 101 about the transport format, resource allocation,and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) information related to theuplink shared channel. Downlink scheduling (e.g., assigning control andshared channel resource blocks to the UE 101 b within a cell) may beperformed at any of the RAN nodes 111 based on channel qualityinformation fed back from any of the UEs 101. The downlink resourceassignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assignedto) each of the UEs 101.

The PDCCH uses control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the controlinformation. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCHcomplex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, whichmay then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Insome examples, each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of theseCCEs, in which each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physicalresource elements collectively referred to as resource element groups(REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mappedto each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs,depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and thechannel condition. In LTE, there can be four or more different PDCCHformats defined with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level,L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some implementations may use concepts for resource allocation forcontrol channel information that are an extension of the above-describedconcepts. For example, some implementations may utilize an enhancedPDCCH (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control informationtransmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhancedCCEs (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets offour physical resource elements collectively referred to as an enhancedREG (EREG). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some examples.

The RAN nodes 111 are configured to communicate with one another usingan interface 112. In examples, such as where the system 100 is an LTEsystem (e.g., when the core network 120 is an evolved packet core (EPC)network as shown in FIG. 2), the interface 112 may be an X2 interface112. The X2 interface may be defined between two or more RAN nodes 111(e.g., two or more eNBs and the like) that connect to the EPC 120, orbetween two eNBs connecting to EPC 120, or both. In some examples, theX2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface (X2-U) and an X2control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provide flow controlmechanisms for user data packets transferred over the X2 interface, andmay be used to communicate information about the delivery of user databetween eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specific sequence numberinformation for user data transferred from a master eNB to a secondaryeNB; information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP protocoldata units (PDUs) to a UE 101 from a secondary eNB for user data;information of PDCP PDUs that were not delivered to a UE 101;information about a current minimum desired buffer size at the secondaryeNB for transmitting to the UE user data, among other information. TheX2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functionality, includingcontext transfers from source to target eNBs or user plane transportcontrol; load management functionality; inter-cell interferencecoordination functionality, among other functionality.

In some examples, such as where the system 100 is a 5G NR system (e.g.,when the core network 120 is a 5G core network as shown in FIG. 3), theinterface 112 may be an Xn interface 112. The Xn interface may bedefined between two or more RAN nodes 111 (e.g., two or more gNBs andthe like) that connect to the 5G core network 120, between a RAN node111 (e.g., a gNB) connecting to the 5G core network 120 and an eNB, orbetween two eNBs connecting to the 5G core network 120, or combinationsof them. In some examples, the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane(Xn-U) interface and an Xn control plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U mayprovide non-guaranteed delivery of user plane PDUs and support/providedata forwarding and flow control functionality. The Xn-C may providemanagement and error handling functionality, functionality to manage theXn-C interface; mobility support for UE 101 in a connected mode (e.g.,CM-CONNECTED) including functionality to manage the UE mobility forconnected mode between one or more RAN nodes 111, among otherfunctionality. The mobility support may include context transfer from anold (source) serving RAN node 111 to new (target) serving RAN node 111,and control of user plane tunnels between old (source) serving RAN node111 to new (target) serving RAN node 111. A protocol stack of the Xn-Umay include a transport network layer built on Internet Protocol (IP)transport layer, and a GPRS tunneling protocol for user plane (GTP-U)layer on top of a user datagram protocol (UDP) or IP layer(s), or both,to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stack may include anapplication layer signaling protocol (referred to as Xn ApplicationProtocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that is built on astream control transmission protocol (SCTP). The SCTP may be on top ofan IP layer, and may provide the guaranteed delivery of applicationlayer messages. In the transport IP layer, point-to-point transmissionis used to deliver the signaling PDUs. In other implementations, theXn-U protocol stack or the Xn-C protocol stack, or both, may be same orsimilar to the user plane and/or control plane protocol stack(s) shownand described herein.

The RAN 110 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network 120(referred to as a “CN 120”). The CN 120 includes one or more networkelements 122, which are configured to offer various data andtelecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., users of UEs101) who are connected to the CN 120 using the RAN 110. The componentsof the CN 120 may be implemented in one physical node or separatephysical nodes and may include components to read and executeinstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some examples,network functions virtualization (NFV) may be used to virtualize some orall of the network node functions described here using executableinstructions stored in one or more computer-readable storage mediums, asdescribed in further detail below. A logical instantiation of the CN 120may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of aportion of the CN 120 may be referred to as a network sub-slice. NFVarchitectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one or morenetwork functions, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, ontophysical resources comprising a combination of industry-standard serverhardware, storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems canbe used to execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one ormore network components or functions, or both.

Generally, an application server 130 may be an element offeringapplications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g.,UMTS packet services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, among others).The application server 130 can also be configured to support one or morecommunication services (e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, groupcommunication sessions, social networking services, among others) forthe UEs 101 using the CN 120.

In some examples, the CN 120 may be a 5G core network (referred to as“5GC 120”), and the RAN 110 may be connected with the CN 120 using anext generation interface 113. In some examples, the next generationinterface 113 may be split into two parts, an next generation user plane(NG-U) interface 114, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes111 and a user plane function (UPF), and the S1 control plane (NG-C)interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 111and access and mobility management functions (AMFs). Examples where theCN 120 is a 5GC 120 are discussed in more detail with regard to FIG. 3.

In some examples, the CN 120 may be an EPC (referred to as “EPC 120” orthe like), and the RAN 110 may be connected with the CN 120 using an S1interface 113. In some examples, the S1 interface 113 may be split intotwo parts, an S1 user plane (S1-U) interface 114, which carries trafficdata between the RAN nodes 111 and the serving gateway (S-GW), and theS1-MME interface 115, which is a signaling interface between the RANnodes 111 and mobility management entities (MMEs).

FIG. 2 illustrates an example architecture of a system 200 including afirst CN 220. In this example, the system 200 may implement the LTEstandard such that the CN 220 is an EPC 220 that corresponds with CN 120of FIG. 1. Additionally, the UE 201 may be the same or similar as theUEs 101 of FIG. 1, and the E-UTRAN 210 may be a RAN that is the same orsimilar to the RAN 110 of FIG. 1, and which may include RAN nodes 111discussed previously. The CN 220 may comprise MMEs 221, an S-GW 222, aPDN gateway (P-GW) 223, a high-speed packet access (HSS) function 224,and a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) 225.

The MMEs 221 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacySGSN, and may implement mobility management (MM) functions to keep trackof the current location of a UE 201. The MMEs 221 may perform variousmobility management procedures to manage mobility aspects in access suchas gateway selection and tracking area list management. Mobilitymanagement (also referred to as “EPS MM” or “EMM” in E-UTRAN systems)may refer to all applicable procedures, methods, data storage, and otheraspects that are used to maintain knowledge about a present location ofthe UE 201, provide user identity confidentiality, or perform other likeservices to users/subscribers, or combinations of them, among others.Each UE 201 and the MME 221 may include an EMM sublayer, and a mobilitymanagement context may be established in the UE 201 and the MME 221 whenan attach procedure is successfully completed. The mobility managementcontext may be a data structure or database object that stores mobilitymanagement-related information of the UE 201. The MMEs 221 may becoupled with the HSS 224 using a S6a reference point, coupled with theSGSN 225 using a S3 reference point, and coupled with the S-GW 222 usinga S11 reference point.

The SGSN 225 may be a node that serves the UE 201 by tracking thelocation of an individual UE 201 and performing security functions. Inaddition, the SGSN 225 may perform Inter-EPC node signaling for mobilitybetween 2G/3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks; PDN and S-GW selectionas specified by the MMEs 221; handling of UE 201 time zone functions asspecified by the MMEs 221; and MME selection for handovers to E-UTRAN3GPP access network, among other functions. The S3 reference pointbetween the MMEs 221 and the SGSN 225 may enable user and bearerinformation exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in idle oractive states, or both.

The HSS 224 may include a database for network users, includingsubscription-related information to support the network entities'handling of communication sessions. The EPC 220 may include one or moreHSSs 224 depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacityof the equipment, on the organization of the network, or combinations ofthem, among other features. For example, the HSS 224 can provide supportfor routing, roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressingresolution, location dependencies, among others. An S6a reference pointbetween the HSS 224 and the MMEs 221 may enable transfer of subscriptionand authentication data for authenticating or authorizing user access tothe EPC 220 between HSS 224 and the MMEs 221.

The S-GW 222 may terminate the S1 interface 113 (“S1-U” in FIG. 2)toward the RAN 210, and may route data packets between the RAN 210 andthe EPC 220. In addition, the S-GW 222 may be a local mobility anchorpoint for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor forinter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawfulintercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. The S11 referencepoint between the S-GW 222 and the MMEs 221 may provide a control planebetween the MMEs 221 and the S-GW 222. The S-GW 222 may be coupled withthe P-GW 223 using a S5 reference point.

The P-GW 223 may terminate a SGi interface toward a PDN 230. The P-GW223 may route data packets between the EPC 220 and external networkssuch as a network including the application server 130 (sometimesreferred to as an “AF”) using an IP interface 125 (see, e.g., FIG. 1).In some examples, the P-GW 223 may be communicatively coupled to anapplication server (e.g., the application server 130 of FIG. 1 or PDN230 in FIG. 2) using an IP communications interface 125 (see, e.g., FIG.1). The S5 reference point between the P-GW 223 and the S-GW 222 mayprovide user plane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 223and the S-GW 222. The S5 reference point may also be used for S-GW 222relocation due to UE 201 mobility and if the S-GW 222 needs to connectto a non-collocated P-GW 223 for the required PDN connectivity. The P-GW223 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging datacollection (e.g., PCEF (not shown)). Additionally, the SGi referencepoint between the P-GW 223 and the packet data network (PDN) 230 may bean operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra operator packetdata network, for example, for provision of IMS services. The P-GW 223may be coupled with a policy control and charging rules function (PCRF)226 using a Gx reference point.

PCRF 226 is the policy and charging control element of the EPC 220. In anon-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 226 in the Home PublicLand Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE 201's Internet ProtocolConnectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario withlocal breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE201's IP-CAN session, a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within an HPLMN and a VisitedPCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). ThePCRF 226 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 230using the P-GW 223. The application server 230 may signal the PCRF 226to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate quality ofservice (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF 226 may provision thisrule into a PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate traffic flow template(TFT) and QoS class identifier (QCI), which commences the QoS andcharging as specified by the application server 230. The Gx referencepoint between the PCRF 226 and the P-GW 223 may allow for the transferof QoS policy and charging rules from the PCRF 226 to PCEF in the P-GW223. An Rx reference point may reside between the PDN 230 (or “AF 230”)and the PCRF 226.

FIG. 3 illustrates an architecture of a system 300 including a second CN320. The system 300 is shown to include a UE 301, which may be the sameor similar to the UEs 101 and UE 201 discussed previously; a (R)AN 310,which may be the same or similar to the RAN 110 and RAN 210 discussedpreviously, and which may include RAN nodes 111 discussed previously;and a data network (DN) 303, which may be, for example, operatorservices, Internet access or 3rd party services; and a 5GC 320. The 5GC320 may include an authentication server function (AUSF) 322; an accessand mobility management function (AMF) 321; a session managementfunction (SMF) 324; a network exposure function (NEF) 323; a policycontrol function (PCF) 326; a network repository function (NRF) 325; aunified data management (UDM) function 327; an AF 328; a user planefunction (UPF) 302; and a network slice selection function (NSSF) 329.

The UPF 302 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RATmobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to DN 303, and abranching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF 302 may alsoperform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection,enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets(UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handlingfor a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rateenforcement), perform Uplink Traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flowmapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, andperform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notificationtriggering. UPF 302 may include an uplink classifier to support routingtraffic flows to a data network. The DN 303 may represent variousnetwork operator services, Internet access, or third party services. DN303 may include, or be similar to, application server 130 discussedpreviously. The UPF 302 may interact with the SMF 324 using a N4reference point between the SMF 324 and the UPF 302.

The AUSF 322 stores data for authentication of UE 301 and handleauthentication-related functionality. The AUSF 322 may facilitate acommon authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF 322may communicate with the AMF 321 using a N12 reference point between theAMF 321 and the AUSF 322, and may communicate with the UDM 327 using aN13 reference point between the UDM 327 and the AUSF 322. Additionally,the AUSF 322 may exhibit a Nausf service-based interface.

The AMF 321 is responsible for registration management (e.g., forregistering UE 301), connection management, reachability management,mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-related events, andaccess authentication and authorization. The AMF 321 may be atermination point for the N11 reference point between the AMF 321 andthe SMF 324. The AMF 321 may provide transport for SM messages betweenthe UE 301 and the SMF 324, and act as a transparent pro10 for routingSM messages. AMF 321 may also provide transport for SMS messages betweenUE 301 and an SMSF (not shown in FIG. 3). AMF 321 may act as securityanchor function (SEAF), which may include interaction with the AUSF 322and the UE 301 to, for example, receive an intermediate key that wasestablished as a result of the UE 301 authentication process. Whereuniversal subscriber identity module (USIM) based authentication isused, the AMF 321 may retrieve the security material from the AUSF 322.AMF 321 may also include a security context management (SCM) function,which receives a key from the SEAF to derive access-network specifickeys. Furthermore, AMF 321 may be a termination point of a RAN controlplane interface, which may include or be a N2 reference point betweenthe (R)AN 310 and the AMF 321. In some examples, the AMF 321 may be atermination point of NAS (N1) signaling and perform NAS ciphering andintegrity protection.

AMF 321 may also support NAS signaling with a UE 301 over a N3inter-working function (IWF) interface (referred to as the “N3IWF”). TheN3IWF may be used to provide access to untrusted entities. The N3IWF maybe a termination point for the N2 interface between the (R)AN 310 andthe AMF 321 for the control plane, and may be a termination point forthe N3 reference point between the (R)AN 310 and the UPF 302 for theuser plane. As such, the AMF 321 may handle N2 signaling from the SMF324 and the AMF 321 for PDU sessions and QoS, encapsulate/de-encapsulatepackets for IPsec and N3 tunneling, mark N3 user-plane packets in theuplink, and enforce QoS corresponding to N3 packet marking taking intoaccount QoS requirements associated with such marking received over N2.The N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlink control-plane NAS signalingbetween the UE 301 and AMF 321 using a N1 reference point between the UE301 and the AMF 321, and relay uplink and downlink user-plane packetsbetween the UE 301 and UPF 302. The N3IWF also provides mechanisms forIPsec tunnel establishment with the UE 301. The AMF 321 may exhibit aNamf service-based interface, and may be a termination point for a N14reference point between two AMFs 321 and a N17 reference point betweenthe AMF 321 and a 5G equipment identity registry (EIR) (not shown inFIG. 3).

The UE 301 may register with the AMF 321 in order to receive networkservices. Registration management (RM) is used to register or deregisterthe UE 301 with the network (e.g., AMF 321), and establish a UE contextin the network (e.g., AMF 321). The UE 301 may operate in aRM-REGISTERED state or an RM-DEREGISTERED state. In the RM DEREGISTEREDstate, the UE 301 is not registered with the network, and the UE contextin AMF 321 holds no valid location or routing information for the UE 301so the UE 301 is not reachable by the AMF 321. In the RM REGISTEREDstate, the UE 301 is registered with the network, and the UE context inAMF 321 may hold a valid location or routing information for the UE 301so the UE 301 is reachable by the AMF 321. In the RM-REGISTERED state,the UE 301 may perform mobility Registration Update procedures, performperiodic Registration Update procedures triggered by expiration of theperiodic update timer (e.g., to notify the network that the UE 301 isstill active), and perform a Registration Update procedure to update UEcapability information or to re-negotiate protocol parameters with thenetwork, among others.

The AMF 321 may store one or more RM contexts for the UE 301, where eachRM context is associated with a specific access to the network. The RMcontext may be, for example, a data structure or database object, amongothers, that indicates or stores a registration state per access typeand the periodic update timer. The AMF 321 may also store a 5GC mobilitymanagement (MM) context that may be the same or similar to the (E)MMcontext discussed previously. In some examples, the AMF 321 may store acoverage enhancement mode B Restriction parameter of the UE 301 in anassociated MM context or RM context. The AMF 321 may also derive thevalue, when needed, from the UE's usage setting parameter already storedin the UE context (and/or MM/RM context).

Connection management (CM) may be used to establish and release asignaling connection between the UE 301 and the AMF 321 over the N1interface. The signaling connection is used to enable NAS signalingexchange between the UE 301 and the CN 320, and includes both thesignaling connection between the UE and the AN (e.g., RRC connection orUE-N3IWF connection for non-3GPP access) and the N2 connection for theUE 301 between the AN (e.g., RAN 310) and the AMF 321. In some examples,the UE 301 may operate in one of two CM modes: CM-IDLE mode orCM-CONNECTED mode. When the UE 301 is operating in the CM-IDLE mode, theUE 301 may have no NAS signaling connection established with the AMF 321over the N1 interface, and there may be (R)AN 310 signaling connection(e.g., N2 or N3 connections, or both) for the UE 301. When the UE 301 isoperating in the CM-CONNECTED mode, the UE 301 may have an establishedNAS signaling connection with the AMF 321 over the N1 interface, andthere may be a (R)AN 310 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and/or N3connections) for the UE 301. Establishment of a N2 connection betweenthe (R)AN 310 and the AMF 321 may cause the UE 301 to transition fromthe CM-IDLE mode to the CM-CONNECTED mode, and the UE 301 may transitionfrom the CM-CONNECTED mode to the CM-IDLE mode when N2 signaling betweenthe (R)AN 310 and the AMF 321 is released.

The SMF 324 may be responsible for session management (SM), such assession establishment, modify and release, including tunnel maintainbetween UPF and AN node; UE IP address allocation and management(including optional authorization); selection and control of UPfunction; configuring traffic steering at the UPF to route traffic toproper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy controlfunctions; controlling part of policy enforcement and QoS; lawfulintercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SMparts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating ANspecific SM information, sent using AMF over N2 to AN; and determiningSSC mode of a session. SM may refer to management of a PDU session, anda PDU session (or “session”) may refer to a PDU connectivity servicethat provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between a UE 301 and adata network (DN) 303 identified by a Data Network Name (DNN). PDUsessions may be established upon UE 301 request, modified upon UE 301and 5GC 320 request, and released upon UE 301 and 5GC 320 request usingNAS SM signaling exchanged over the N1 reference point between the UE301 and the SMF 324. Upon request from an application server, the 5GC320 may trigger a specific application in the UE 301. In response toreceipt of the trigger message, the UE 301 may pass the trigger message(or relevant parts/information of the trigger message) to one or moreidentified applications in the UE 301. The identified application(s) inthe UE 301 may establish a PDU session to a specific DNN. The SMF 324may check whether the UE 301 requests are compliant with usersubscription information associated with the UE 301. In this regard, theSMF 324 may retrieve and/or request to receive update notifications onSMF 324 level subscription data from the UDM 327.

The SMF 324 may include some or all of the following roamingfunctionality: handling local enforcement to apply QoS service levelagreements (SLAs) (e.g., in VPLMN); charging data collection andcharging interface (e.g., in VPLMN); lawful intercept (e.g., in VPLMNfor SM events and interface to LI system); and support for interactionwith external DN for transport of signaling for PDU sessionauthorization/authentication by external DN. A N16 reference pointbetween two SMFs 324 may be included in the system 300, which may bebetween another SMF 324 in a visited network and the SMF 324 in the homenetwork in roaming scenarios. Additionally, the SMF 324 may exhibit theNsmf service-based interface.

The NEF 323 may provide means for securely exposing the services andcapabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party,internal exposure/re-exposure, Application Functions (e.g., AF 328),edge computing or fog computing systems, among others. In some examples,the NEF 323 may authenticate, authorize, and/or throttle the AFs. TheNEF 323 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 328 andinformation exchanged with internal network functions. For example, theNEF 323 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal5GC information. NEF 323 may also receive information from other networkfunctions (NFs) based on exposed capabilities of other networkfunctions. This information may be stored at the NEF 323 as structureddata, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The storedinformation can then be re-exposed by the NEF 323 to other NFs and AFs,or used for other purposes such as analytics, or both. Additionally, theNEF 323 may exhibit a Nnef service-based interface.

The NRF 325 may support service discovery functions, receive NFdiscovery requests from NF instances, and provide the information of thediscovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 325 also maintainsinformation of available NF instances and their supported services. Asused herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like mayrefer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 325 may exhibit theNnrf service-based interface.

The PCF 326 may provide policy rules to control plane function(s) toenforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to governnetwork behavior. The PCF 326 may also implement a front end to accesssubscription information relevant for policy decisions in a unified datarepository (UDR) of the UDM 327. The PCF 326 may communicate with theAMF 321 using an N15 reference point between the PCF 326 and the AMF321, which may include a PCF 326 in a visited network and the AMF 321 incase of roaming scenarios. The PCF 326 may communicate with the AF 328using a N5 reference point between the PCF 326 and the AF 328; and withthe SMF 324 using a N7 reference point between the PCF 326 and the SMF324. The system 300 or CN 320, or both, may also include a N24 referencepoint between the PCF 326 (in the home network) and a PCF 326 in avisited network. Additionally, the PCF 326 may exhibit a Npcfservice-based interface.

The UDM 327 may handle subscription-related information to support thenetwork entities' handling of communication sessions, and may storesubscription data of UE 301. For example, subscription data may becommunicated between the UDM 327 and the AMF 321 using a N8 referencepoint between the UDM 327 and the AMF. The UDM 327 may include twoparts, an application front end and a UDR (the front end and UDR are notshown in FIG. 3). The UDR may store subscription data and policy datafor the UDM 327 and the PCF 326, or structured data for exposure andapplication data (including PFDs for application detection, applicationrequest information for multiple UEs 301) for the NEF 323, or both. TheNudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allowthe UDM 327, PCF 326, and NEF 323 to access a particular set of thestored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, andsubscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDMmay include a UDM front end, which is in charge of processingcredentials, location management, subscription management and so on.Several different front ends may serve the same user in differenttransactions. The UDM front end accesses subscription information storedin the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, useridentification handling, access authorization, registration/mobilitymanagement, and subscription management. The UDR may interact with theSMF 324 using a N10 reference point between the UDM 327 and the SMF 324.UDM 327 may also support SMS management, in which an SMS front endimplements the similar application logic as discussed previously.Additionally, the UDM 327 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

The AF 328 may provide application influence on traffic routing, provideaccess to the network capability exposure (NCE), and interact with thepolicy framework for policy control. The NCE may be a mechanism thatallows the 5GC 320 and AF 328 to provide information to each other usingNEF 323, which may be used for edge computing implementations. In suchimplementations, the network operator and third party services may behosted close to the UE 301 access point of attachment to achieve anefficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency andload on the transport network. For edge computing implementations, the5GC may select a UPF 302 close to the UE 301 and execute trafficsteering from the UPF 302 to DN 303 using the N6 interface. This may bebased on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information providedby the AF 328. In this way, the AF 328 may influence UPF (re)selectionand traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 328 isconsidered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF328 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 328 mayexhibit a Naf service-based interface.

The NSSF 329 may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE301. The NSSF 329 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping tothe subscribed single network slice selection assistance information(S-NSSAI), if needed. The NSSF 329 may also determine the AMF set to beused to serve the UE 301, or a list of candidate AMF(s) 321 based on asuitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 325. Theselection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 301 may betriggered by the AMF 321 with which the UE 301 is registered byinteracting with the NSSF 329, which may lead to a change of AMF 321.The NSSF 329 may interact with the AMF 321 using an N22 reference pointbetween AMF 321 and NSSF 329; and may communicate with another NSSF 329in a visited network using a N31 reference point (not shown by FIG. 3).Additionally, the NS SF 329 may exhibit a Nnssf service-based interface.

As discussed previously, the CN 320 may include an SMSF, which may beresponsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relayingSM messages to or from the UE 301 to or from other entities, such as anSMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF 321 andUDM 327 for a notification procedure that the UE 301 is available forSMS transfer (e.g., set a UE not reachable flag, and notifying UDM 327when UE 301 is available for SMS).

The CN 120 may also include other elements that are not shown in FIG. 3,such as a data storage system, a 5G-EIR, a security edge protectionpro10 (SEPP), and the like. The data storage system may include astructured data storage function (SDSF), an unstructured data storagefunction (UDSF), or both, among others. Any network function may storeand retrieve unstructured data to or from the UDSF (e.g., UE contexts),using a N18 reference point between any NF and the UDSF (not shown inFIG. 3). Individual network functions may share a UDSF for storing theirrespective unstructured data or individual network functions may eachhave their own UDSF located at or near the individual network functions.Additionally, the UDSF may exhibit a Nudsf service-based interface (notshown in FIG. 3). The 5G-EIR may be a network function that checks thestatus of permanent equipment identifiers (PEI) for determining whetherparticular equipment or entities are blacklisted from the network; andthe SEPP may be a non-transparent pro10 that performs topology hiding,message filtering, and policing on inter-PLMN control plane interfaces.

In some examples, there may be additional or alternative referencepoints or service-based interfaces, or both, between the networkfunction services in the network functions. However, these interfacesand reference points have been omitted from FIG. 3 for clarity. In oneexample, the CN 320 may include a Nx interface, which is an inter-CNinterface between the MME (e.g., MME 221) and the AMF 321 in order toenable interworking between CN 320 and CN 220. Other example interfacesor reference points may include a N5g-EIR service-based interfaceexhibited by a 5G-EIR, a N27 reference point between the NRF in thevisited network and the NRF in the home network, or a N31 referencepoint between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF in the homenetwork, among others.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment 400. Theinfrastructure equipment 400 (or “system 400”) may be implemented as abase station, a radio head, a RAN node, such as the RAN nodes 111 or AP106 shown and described previously, an application server(s) 130, or anyother component or device described herein. In other examples, thesystem 400 can be implemented in or by a UE.

The system 400 includes application circuitry 405, baseband circuitry410, one or more radio front end modules (RFEMs) 415, memory circuitry420, power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 425, power teecircuitry 430, network controller circuitry 435, network interfaceconnector 440, satellite positioning circuitry 445, and user interfacecircuitry 450. In some examples, the system 400 may include additionalelements such as, for example, memory, storage, a display, a camera, oneor more sensors, or an input/output (I/O) interface, or combinations ofthem, among others. In other examples, the components described withreference to the system 400 may be included in more than one device. Forexample, the various circuitries may be separately included in more thanone device for CRAN, vBBU, or other implementations.

The application circuitry 405 includes circuitry such as, but notlimited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory,one or more of low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interruptcontrollers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I2C or universalprogrammable serial interface module, real time clock (RTC),timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purposeinput/output (I/O or IO), memory card controllers such as Secure Digital(SD) MultiMediaCard (MMC) or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB)interfaces, Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) interfaces andJoint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. The processors (orcores) of the application circuitry 405 may be coupled with or mayinclude memory or storage elements and may be configured to executeinstructions stored in the memory or storage to enable variousapplications or operating systems to run on the system 400. In someexamples, the memory or storage elements may include on-chip memorycircuitry, which may include any suitable volatile or non-volatilememory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-statememory, or combinations of them, among other types of memory.

The processor(s) of the application circuitry 405 may include, forexample, one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more applicationprocessors, one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or morereduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more AcornRISC Machine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction setcomputing (CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors(DSP), one or more FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one ormore microprocessors or controllers, or combinations of them, amongothers. In some examples, the application circuitry 405 may include, ormay be, a special-purpose processor or controller configured to carryout the various techniques described here. As examples, the processor(s)of application circuitry 405 may include one or more Intel Pentium®,Core®, or Xeon® processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen®processor(s), Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors;ARM-based processor(s) licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd. such as the ARMCortex-A family of processors and the ThunderX2® provided by Cavium™,Inc.; a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPSWarrior P-class processors; and/or the like. In some examples, thesystem 400 may not utilize application circuitry 405, and instead mayinclude a special-purpose processor or controller to process IP datareceived from an EPC or 5GC, for example.

In some examples, the application circuitry 405 may include one or morehardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmableprocessing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware acceleratorsmay include, for example, computer vision (CV) or deep learning (DL)accelerators, or both. In some examples, the programmable processingdevices may be one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such asfield-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logicdevices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs) or high-capacity PLDs(HCPLDs); ASICs such as structured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), orcombinations of them, among others. In such implementations, thecircuitry of application circuitry 405 may include logic blocks or logicfabric, and other interconnected resources that may be programmed toperform various functions, such as the procedures, methods, functionsdescribed herein. In some examples, the circuitry of applicationcircuitry 405 may include memory cells (e.g., erasable programmableread-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-onlymemory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory (e.g., static random accessmemory (SRAM) or anti-fuses)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric,data, or other data in look-up-tables (LUTs) and the like.

The baseband circuitry 410 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 410 arediscussed with regard to FIG. 6.

The user interface circuitry 450 may include one or more user interfacesdesigned to enable user interaction with the system 400 or peripheralcomponent interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interactionwith the system 400. User interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), oneor more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physicalkeyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers orother audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, aheadset, a display screen or display device, or combinations of them,among others. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are notlimited to, a nonvolatile memory port, a universal serial bus (USB)port, an audio jack, a power supply interface, among others.

The radio front end modules (RFEMs) 415 may include a millimeter wave(mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave radio frequency integratedcircuits (RFICs). In some examples, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs maybe physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may includeconnections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g.,antenna array 611 of FIG. 6), and the RFEM may be connected to multipleantennas. In some examples, both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functionsmay be implemented in the same physical RFEM 415, which incorporatesboth mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 420 may include one or more of volatile memory,such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or synchronous dynamicrandom access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM), such ashigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), or combinations of them, among others. Insome examples, the memory circuitry 420 may include three-dimensional(3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. Memorycircuitry 420 may be implemented as one or more of solder down packagedintegrated circuits, socketed memory modules and plug-in memory cards,for example.

The PMIC 425 may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, poweralarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such asa battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detectone or more of brown out (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage)conditions. The power tee circuitry 430 may provide for electrical powerdrawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and dataconnectivity to the infrastructure equipment 400 using a single cable.

The network controller circuitry 435 may provide connectivity to anetwork using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet,Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may beprovided to and from the infrastructure equipment 400 using networkinterface connector 440 using a physical connection, which may beelectrical (commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical,or wireless. The network controller circuitry 435 may include one ormore dedicated processors or FPGAs, or both, to communicate using one ormore of the aforementioned protocols. In some examples, the networkcontroller circuitry 435 may include multiple controllers to provideconnectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 445 includes circuitry to receive and decodesignals transmitted or broadcasted by a positioning network of a globalnavigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of a GNSS include UnitedStates' Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia's Global NavigationSystem (GLONASS), the European Union's Galileo system, China's BeiDouNavigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., Navigation with Indian Constellation (NAVIC),Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), France's DopplerOrbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS)),among other systems. The positioning circuitry 445 can include varioushardware elements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches,filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some examples, thepositioning circuitry 445 may include a Micro-Technology forPositioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) IC that uses a mastertiming clock to perform position tracking and estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 445 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 410 or RFEMs 415, or both, tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 445 may also provide data (e.g., positiondata, time data) to the application circuitry 405, which may use thedata to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RANnodes 111).

The components shown by FIG. 4 may communicate with one another usinginterface circuitry, which may include any number of bus or interconnect(IX) technologies such as industry standard architecture (ISA), extendedISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI), peripheralcomponent interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe), or anynumber of other technologies. The bus or IX may be a proprietary bus,for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus or IX systems may beincluded, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point to pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a platform 500 (or “device 500”). Insome examples, the computer platform 500 may be suitable for use as UEs101, 201, 301, application servers 130, or any other component or devicediscussed herein. The platform 500 may include any combinations of thecomponents shown in the example. The components of platform 500 (orportions thereof) may be implemented as integrated circuits (ICs),discrete electronic devices, or other modules, logic, hardware,software, firmware, or a combination of them adapted in the computerplatform 500, or as components otherwise incorporated within a chassisof a larger system. The block diagram of FIG. 5 is intended to show ahigh level view of components of the platform 500. However, in someexamples, the platform 500 may include fewer, additional, or alternativecomponents, or a different arrangement of the components shown in FIG.5.

The application circuitry 505 includes circuitry such as, but notlimited to, one or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory,and one or more of LDOs, interrupt controllers, serial interfaces suchas SPI, I2C or universal programmable serial interface module, RTC,timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purposeI/O, memory card controllers such as SD MMC or similar, USB interfaces,MIPI interfaces, and JTAG test access ports. The processors (or cores)of the application circuitry 505 may be coupled with or may includememory/storage elements and may be configured to execute instructionsstored in the memory or storage to enable various applications oroperating systems to run on the system 500. In some examples, the memoryor storage elements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may includeany suitable volatile or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM,EEPROM, Flash memory, solid-state memory, or combinations of them, amongother types of memory.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 405 may include, for example,one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one ormore GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, oneor more CISC processors, one or more DSP, one or more FPGAs, one or morePLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, amultithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embeddedprocessor, some other known processing element, or any suitablecombination thereof. In some examples, the application circuitry 405 mayinclude, or may be, a special-purpose processor/controller to carry outthe techniques described herein.

As examples, the processor(s) of application circuitry 505 may includean Intel® Architecture Core™ based processor, such as a Quark™, anAtom™, an i3, an i5, an i7, or an MCU-class processor, or another suchprocessor available from Intel® Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. Theprocessors of the application circuitry 505 may also be one or more ofAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s) or AcceleratedProcessing Units (APUs); A5-A9 processor(s) from Apple® Inc.,Snapdragon™ processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., TexasInstruments, Inc.® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™processor(s); a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such asMIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors;an ARM-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARMCortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M family of processors; or the like. Insome examples, the application circuitry 505 may be a part of a systemon a chip (SoC) in which the application circuitry 505 and othercomponents are formed into a single integrated circuit, or a singlepackage, such as the Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC boards from Intel®Corporation.

Additionally or alternatively, the application circuitry 505 may includecircuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmabledevices (FPDs) such as FPGAs; programmable logic devices (PLDs) such ascomplex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs); ASICs such asstructured ASICs; programmable SoCs (PSoCs), or combinations of them,among others. In some examples, the application circuitry 505 mayinclude logic blocks or logic fabric, and other interconnected resourcesthat may be programmed to perform various functions, such as theprocedures, methods, functions described herein. In some examples, theapplication circuitry 505 may include memory cells (e.g., erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory(e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), or anti-fuses)) used to storelogic blocks, logic fabric, data, or other data in look-up tables (LUTs)and the like.

The baseband circuitry 510 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 510 arediscussed with regard to FIG. 6.

The RFEMs 515 may comprise a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one ormore sub-mmWave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In someexamples, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physically separatedfrom the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to one or moreantennas or antenna arrays (see, e.g., antenna array 611 of FIG. 6), andthe RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. In some examples, bothmmWave and sub-mmWave radio functions may be implemented in the samephysical RFEM 515, which incorporates both mmWave antennas andsub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 520 may include any number and type of memorydevices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. Asexamples, the memory circuitry 520 may include one or more of volatilememory, such as random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) orsynchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM), such ashigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), or magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), or combinations of them, among others. Thememory circuitry 520 may be developed in accordance with a JointElectron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC) low power double data rate(LPDDR)-based design, such as LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, or the like.Memory circuitry 520 may be implemented as one or more of solder downpackaged integrated circuits, single die package (SDP), dual die package(DDP) or quad die package (Q17P), socketed memory modules, dual inlinememory modules (DIMMs) including microDIMMs or MiniDIMMs, or solderedonto a motherboard using a ball grid array (BGA). In low powerimplementations, the memory circuitry 520 may be on-die memory orregisters associated with the application circuitry 505. To provide forpersistent storage of information such as data, applications, operatingsystems and so forth, memory circuitry 520 may include one or more massstorage devices, which may include, for example, a solid state diskdrive (SSDD), hard disk drive (HDD), a micro HDD, resistance changememories, phase change memories, holographic memories, or chemicalmemories, among others. In some examples, the computer platform 500 mayincorporate the three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memoriesfrom Intel® and Micron®.

The removable memory circuitry 523 may include devices, circuitry,enclosures, housings, ports or receptacles, among others, used to coupleportable data storage devices with the platform 500. These portable datastorage devices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include,for example, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards,microSD cards, xD picture cards), and USB flash drives, optical discs,or external HDDs, or combinations of them, among others.

The platform 500 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) forconnecting external devices with the platform 500. The external devicesconnected to the platform 500 using the interface circuitry includesensor circuitry 521 and electro-mechanical components (EMCs) 522, aswell as removable memory devices coupled to removable memory circuitry523.

The sensor circuitry 521 include devices, modules, or subsystems whosepurpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and send theinformation (e.g., sensor data) about the detected events to one or moreother devices, modules, or subsystems. Examples of such sensors includeinertial measurement units (IMUs) such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, ormagnetometers; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) ornanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) including 3-axis accelerometers,3-axis gyroscopes, or magnetometers; level sensors; flow sensors;temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); pressure sensors; barometricpressure sensors; gravimeters; altimeters; image capture devices (e.g.,cameras or lensless apertures); light detection and ranging (LiDAR)sensors; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiation detector and thelike), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonic transceivers;microphones or other audio capture devices, or combinations of them,among others.

The EMCs 522 include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is toenable the platform 500 to change its state, position, or orientation,or move or control a mechanism, system, or subsystem. Additionally, theEMCs 522 may be configured to generate and send messages or signaling toother components of the platform 500 to indicate a current state of theEMCs 522. Examples of the EMCs 522 include one or more power switches,relays, such as electromechanical relays (EMRs) or solid state relays(SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators), an audible sound generator, avisual warning device, motors (e.g., DC motors or stepper motors),wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks, or combinations ofthem, among other electro-mechanical components. In some examples, theplatform 500 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 522 based on oneor more captured events, instructions, or control signals received froma service provider or clients, or both.

In some examples, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 500with positioning circuitry 545. The positioning circuitry 545 includescircuitry to receive and decode signals transmitted or broadcasted by apositioning network of a GNSS. Examples of a GNSS include United States'GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China'sBeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, amongother systems. The positioning circuitry 545 comprises various hardwareelements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters,amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some examples, thepositioning circuitry 545 may include a Micro-PNT IC that uses a mastertiming clock to perform position tracking or estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 545 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 410 or RFEMs 515, or both, tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 545 may also provide data (e.g., positiondata, time data) to the application circuitry 505, which may use thedata to synchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radiobase stations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, or the like.

In some examples, the interface circuitry may connect the platform 500with Near-Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 540. The NFC circuitry 540is configured to provide contactless, short-range communications basedon radio frequency identification (RFID) standards, in which magneticfield induction is used to enable communication between NFC circuitry540 and NFC-enabled devices external to the platform 500 (e.g., an “NFCtouchpoint”). The NFC circuitry 540 includes an NFC controller coupledwith an antenna element and a processor coupled with the NFC controller.The NFC controller may be a chip or IC providing NFC functionalities tothe NFC circuitry 540 by executing NFC controller firmware and an NFCstack. The NFC stack may be executed by the processor to control the NFCcontroller, and the NFC controller firmware may be executed by the NFCcontroller to control the antenna element to emit short-range RFsignals. The RF signals may power a passive NFC tag (e.g., a microchipembedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmit stored data to the NFCcircuitry 540, or initiate data transfer between the NFC circuitry 540and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphone or an NFC-enabled POSterminal) that is proximate to the platform 500.

The driver circuitry 546 may include software and hardware elements thatoperate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform500, attached to the platform 500, or otherwise communicatively coupledwith the platform 500. The driver circuitry 546 may include individualdrivers allowing other components of the platform 500 to interact withor control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be presentwithin, or connected to, the platform 500. For example, the drivercircuitry 546 may include a display driver to control and allow accessto a display device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access toa touchscreen interface of the platform 500, sensor drivers to obtainsensor readings of sensor circuitry 521 and control and allow access tosensor circuitry 521, EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of theEMCs 522 or control and allow access to the EMCs 522, a camera driver tocontrol and allow access to an embedded image capture device, audiodrivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

The power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 525 (also referred toas “power management circuitry 525”) may manage power provided tovarious components of the platform 500. In particular, with respect tothe baseband circuitry 510, the PMIC 525 may control power-sourceselection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion.The PMIC 525 may be included when the platform 500 is capable of beingpowered by a battery 530, for example, when the device is included in aUE 101, 201, 301.

In some examples, the PMIC 525 may control, or otherwise be part of,various power saving mechanisms of the platform 500. For example, if theplatform 500 is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connectedto the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it mayenter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a periodof inactivity. During this state, the platform 500 may power down forbrief intervals of time and thus save power. If there is no data trafficactivity for an extended period of time, then the platform 500 maytransition off to an RRC_Idle state, where it disconnects from thenetwork and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedbackor handover. This can allow the platform 500 to enter a very low powerstate, where it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and thenpowers down again. In some examples, the platform 500 may not receivedata in the RRC_Idle state and instead must transition back toRRC_Connected state to receive data. An additional power saving mode mayallow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer thana paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During thistime, the device may be unreachable to the network and may power downcompletely. Any data sent during this time may incurs a large delay andit is assumed the delay is acceptable.

A battery 530 may power the platform 500, although in some examples theplatform 500 may be deployed in a fixed location, and may have a powersupply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery 530 may be a lithiumion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, analuminum-air battery, or a lithium-air battery, among others. In someexamples, such as in V2X applications, the battery 530 may be a typicallead-acid automotive battery.

In some examples, the battery 530 may be a “smart battery,” whichincludes or is coupled with a Battery Management System (BMS) or batterymonitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform500 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 530. The BMS maybe used to monitor other parameters of the battery 530 to providefailure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state offunction (SoF) of the battery 530. The BMS may communicate theinformation of the battery 530 to the application circuitry 505 or othercomponents of the platform 500. The BMS may also include ananalog-to-digital (ADC) convertor that allows the application circuitry505 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 530 or the currentflow from the battery 530. The battery parameters may be used todetermine actions that the platform 500 may perform, such astransmission frequency, network operation, or sensing frequency, amongothers.

A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid maybe coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 530. In some examples, thepower block 530 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtainthe power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in thecomputer platform 500. In these examples, a wireless battery chargingcircuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuitschosen may depend on the size of the battery 530, and thus, the currentrequired. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standardpromulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standardpromulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence chargingstandard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others.

The user interface circuitry 550 includes various input/output (I/O)devices present within, or connected to, the platform 500, and includesone or more user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with theplatform 500 or peripheral component interfaces designed to enableperipheral component interaction with the platform 500. The userinterface circuitry 550 includes input device circuitry and outputdevice circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for accepting an input including one or more physical orvirtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard, keypad,mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, microphones, scanner, or headset, orcombinations of them, among others. The output device circuitry includesany physical or virtual means for showing information or otherwiseconveying information, such as sensor readings, actuator position(s), orother information. Output device circuitry may include any number orcombinations of audio or visual display, including one or more simplevisual outputs or indicators (e.g., binary status indicators (e.g.,light emitting diodes (LEDs)), multi-character visual outputs, or morecomplex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g., LiquidChrystal Displays (LCD), LED displays, quantum dot displays, orprojectors), with the output of characters, graphics, or multimediaobjects being generated or produced from the operation of the platform500. The output device circuitry may also include speakers or otheraudio emitting devices, or printer(s). In some examples, the sensorcircuitry 521 may be used as the input device circuitry (e.g., an imagecapture device or motion capture device), and one or more EMCs may beused as the output device circuitry (e.g., an actuator to provide hapticfeedback). In another example, NFC circuitry comprising an NFCcontroller coupled with an antenna element and a processing device maybe included to read electronic tags or connect with another NFC-enableddevice. Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, a non-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, or a powersupply interface.

Although not shown, the components of platform 500 may communicate withone another using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, whichmay include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx,PCIe, a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or anynumber of other technologies. The bus or IX may be a proprietary bus orIX, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus or IX systems maybe included, such as an I2C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 6 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry 610 andradio front end modules (RFEM) 615. The baseband circuitry 610 cancorrespond to the baseband circuitry 410 and 510 of FIGS. 4 and 5,respectively. The RFEM 615 can correspond to the RFEM 415 and 515 ofFIGS. 4 and 5, respectively. As shown, the RFEMs 615 may include RadioFrequency (RF) circuitry 606, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 608,antenna array 611 coupled together.

The baseband circuitry 610 includes circuitry or control logic, or both,configured to carry out various radio or network protocol and controlfunctions that enable communication with one or more radio networksusing the RF circuitry 606. The radio control functions may include, butare not limited to, signal modulation and demodulation, encoding anddecoding, and radio frequency shifting. In some examples, modulation anddemodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 610 may includeFast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping anddemapping functionality. In some examples, encoding and decodingcircuitry of the baseband circuitry 610 may include convolution,tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check(LDPC) encoder and decoder functionality. Modulation and demodulationand encoder and decoder functionality are not limited to these examplesand may include other suitable functionality in other examples. Thebaseband circuitry 610 is configured to process baseband signalsreceived from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 and togenerate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry606. The baseband circuitry 610 is configured to interface withapplication circuitry (e.g., the application circuitry 405, 505 shown inFIGS. 4 and 5) for generation and processing of the baseband signals andfor controlling operations of the RF circuitry 606. The basebandcircuitry 610 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and control logic of the baseband circuitry610 may include one or more single or multi-core processors. Forexample, the one or more processors may include a 3G baseband processor604A, a 4G or LTE baseband processor 604B, a 5G or NR baseband processor604C, or some other baseband processor(s) 604D for other existinggenerations, generations in development or to be developed in the future(e.g., sixth generation (6G)). In some examples, some or all of thefunctionality of baseband processors 604A-D may be included in modulesstored in the memory 604G and executed using a Central Processing Unit(CPU) 604E. In some examples, some or all of the functionality ofbaseband processors 604A-D may be provided as hardware accelerators(e.g., FPGAs or ASICs) loaded with the appropriate bit streams or logicblocks stored in respective memory cells. In some examples, the memory604G may store program code of a real-time OS (RTOS) which, whenexecuted by the CPU 604E (or other baseband processor), is to cause theCPU 604E (or other baseband processor) to manage resources of thebaseband circuitry 610, schedule tasks, or carry out other operations.Examples of the RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, VersatileReal-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS, such asthose discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry 610 includesone or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 604F. The audioDSP(s) 604F include elements for compression and decompression and echocancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in someexamples.

In some examples, each of the processors 604A-604E include respectivememory interfaces to send and receive data to and from the memory 604G.The baseband circuitry 610 may further include one or more interfaces tocommunicatively couple to other circuitries or devices, such as aninterface to send and receive data to and from memory external to thebaseband circuitry 610; an application circuitry interface to send andreceive data to and from the application circuitry 405, 505 of FIGS. 4and 6); an RF circuitry interface to send and receive data to and fromRF circuitry 606 of FIG. 6; a wireless hardware connectivity interfaceto send and receive data to and from one or more wireless hardwareelements (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) components,Bluetooth®/Bluetooth® Low Energy components, Wi-Fi® components, and/orthe like); and a power management interface to send and receive power orcontrol signals to and from the PMIC 525.

In some examples (which may be combined with the above describedexamples), the baseband circuitry 610 includes one or more digitalbaseband systems, which are coupled with one another using aninterconnect subsystem and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, andan interface subsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also becoupled to a digital baseband interface and a mixed-signal basebandsubsystem using another interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnectsubsystems may include a bus system, point-to-point connections,network-on-chip (NOC) structures, or some other suitable bus orinterconnect technology, such as those discussed herein. The audiosubsystem may include DSP circuitry, buffer memory, program memory,speech processing accelerator circuitry, data converter circuitry suchas analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter circuitry, analogcircuitry including one or more of amplifiers and filters, among othercomponents. In some examples, the baseband circuitry 610 may includeprotocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of controlcircuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digitalbaseband circuitry or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radio frontend modules 615).

Although not shown in FIG. 6, in some examples, the baseband circuitry610 includes individual processing device(s) to operate one or morewireless communication protocols (e.g., a “multi-protocol basebandprocessor” or “protocol processing circuitry”) and individual processingdevice(s) to implement PHY layer functions. In some examples, the PHYlayer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions. Insome examples, the protocol processing circuitry operates or implementsvarious protocol layers or entities of one or more wirelesscommunication protocols. For example, the protocol processing circuitrymay operate LTE protocol entities or 5G NR protocol entities, or both,when the baseband circuitry 610 or RF circuitry 606, or both, are partof mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellularcommunication circuitry. In this example, the protocol processingcircuitry can operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. Insome examples, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one or moreIEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 610 or RF circuitry606, or both, are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In this example,the protocol processing circuitry can operate Wi-Fi MAC and logical linkcontrol (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitry may includeone or more memory structures (e.g., 604G) to store program code anddata for operating the protocol functions, as well as one or moreprocessing cores to execute the program code and perform variousoperations using the data. The baseband circuitry 610 may also supportradio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry 610 discussedherein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrateincluding one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged ICsoldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing twoor more ICs. In some examples, the components of the baseband circuitry610 may be suitably combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed ona same circuit board. In some examples, some or all of the constituentcomponents of the baseband circuitry 610 and RF circuitry 606 may beimplemented together such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) orSystem-in-Package (SiP). In some examples, some or all of theconstituent components of the baseband circuitry 610 may be implementedas a separate SoC that is communicatively coupled with and RF circuitry606 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 606). In some examples, someor all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 610 andthe application circuitry 405, 505 may be implemented together asindividual SoCs mounted to a same circuit board (e.g., a “multi-chippackage”).

In some examples, the baseband circuitry 610 may provide forcommunication compatible with one or more radio technologies. Forexample, the baseband circuitry 610 may support communication with anE-UTRAN or other WMAN, a WLAN, or a WPAN. Examples in which the basebandcircuitry 610 is configured to support radio communications of more thanone wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode basebandcircuitry.

The RF circuitry 606 may enable communication with wireless networksusing modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Insome examples, the RF circuitry 606 may include switches, filters, oramplifiers, among other components, to facilitate the communication withthe wireless network. The RF circuitry 606 may include a receive signalpath, which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals receivedfrom the FEM circuitry 608 and provide baseband signals to the basebandcircuitry 610. The RF circuitry 606 may also include a transmit signalpath, which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signalsprovided by the baseband circuitry 610 and provide RF output signals tothe FEM circuitry 608 for transmission.

The receive signal path of the RF circuitry 606 includes mixer circuitry606 a, amplifier circuitry 606 b and filter circuitry 606 c. In someexamples, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 606 may includefilter circuitry 606 c and mixer circuitry 606 a. The RF circuitry 606also includes synthesizer circuitry 606 d for synthesizing a frequencyfor use by the mixer circuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and thetransmit signal path. In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of thereceive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signalsreceived from the FEM circuitry 608 based on the synthesized frequencyprovided by synthesizer circuitry 606 d. The amplifier circuitry 606 bmay be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filtercircuitry 606 c may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF)configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals togenerate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may beprovided to the baseband circuitry 610 for further processing. In someexamples, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency basebandsignals, although this is not a requirement. In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers.

In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmit signal pathmay be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on thesynthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 606 d togenerate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 608. The basebandsignals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 610 and may befiltered by filter circuitry 606 c.

In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 a of the receive signal pathand the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmit signal path may includetwo or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion andupconversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixer circuitry 606 aof the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 a of the transmitsignal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for imagerejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 aof the transmit signal path may be arranged for direct downconversionand direct upconversion, respectively. In some examples, the mixercircuitry 606 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 606 aof the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyneoperation.

In some examples, the output baseband signals and the input basebandsignals may be analog baseband signals. In some examples, the outputbaseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital basebandsignals, and the RF circuitry 606 may include analog-to-digitalconverter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and thebaseband circuitry 610 may include a digital baseband interface tocommunicate with the RF circuitry 606.

In some dual-mode examples, a separate radio IC circuitry may beprovided for processing signals for each spectrum, although thetechniques described here are not limited in this respect.

In some examples, the synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be a fractional-Nsynthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although other types offrequency synthesizers may used. For example, synthesizer circuitry 606d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or asynthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be configured to synthesize anoutput frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 606 a of the RFcircuitry 606 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. Insome examples, the synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be a fractional N/N+1synthesizer.

In some examples, frequency input may be provided by a voltagecontrolled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Dividercontrol input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 610 orthe application circuitry 405/505 depending on the desired outputfrequency. In some examples, a divider control input (e.g., N) may bedetermined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by theapplication circuitry 405, 505.

The synthesizer circuitry 606 d of the RF circuitry 606 may include adivider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phaseaccumulator. In some examples, the divider may be a dual modulus divider(DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator(DPA). In some examples, the DMD may be configured to divide the inputsignal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide afractional division ratio. In some examples, the DLL may include a setof cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pumpand a D-type flip-flop. The delay elements may be configured to break aVCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number ofdelay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negativefeedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line isone VCO cycle.

In some examples, synthesizer circuitry 606 d may be configured togenerate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in otherexamples, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrierfrequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrierfrequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and dividercircuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency withmultiple different phases with respect to each other. In some examples,the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some examples, theRF circuitry 606 may include an IQ or polar converter.

The FEM circuitry 608 may include a receive signal path, which mayinclude circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received fromantenna array 611, amplify the received signals and provide theamplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 606 forfurther processing. The FEM circuitry 608 may also include a transmitsignal path, which may include circuitry configured to amplify signalsfor transmission provided by the RF circuitry 606 for transmission byone or more of antenna elements of antenna array 611. The amplificationthrough the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in theRF circuitry 606, solely in the FEM circuitry 608, or in both the RFcircuitry 606 and the FEM circuitry 608.

In some examples, the FEM circuitry 608 may include a TX/RX switch toswitch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEMcircuitry 608 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signalpath. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include anLNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RFsignals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 606). The transmitsignal path of the FEM circuitry 608 may include a power amplifier (PA)to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 606), andone or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmissionby one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 611.

The antenna array 611 comprises one or more antenna elements, each ofwhich is configured convert electrical signals into radio waves totravel through the air and to convert received radio waves intoelectrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided bythe baseband circuitry 610 is converted into analog RF signals (e.g.,modulated waveform) that will be amplified and transmitted using theantenna elements of the antenna array 611 including one or more antennaelements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional,directional, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may beformed in a multitude of arranges as are known and/or discussed herein.The antenna array 611 may comprise microstrip antennas or printedantennas that are fabricated on the surface of one or more printedcircuit boards. The antenna array 611 may be formed as a patch of metalfoil (e.g., a patch antenna) in a variety of shapes, and may be coupledwith the RF circuitry 606 and/or FEM circuitry 608 using metaltransmission lines or the like.

Processors of the application circuitry 405/505 and processors of thebaseband circuitry 610 may be used to execute elements of one or moreinstances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the basebandcircuitry 610, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3,Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the applicationcircuitry 405, 505 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received fromthese layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., TCP andUDP layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a RRC layer,described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 maycomprise a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, described infurther detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a PHYlayer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

FIG. 7 illustrates example components of communication circuitry 700. Insome examples, the communication circuitry 700 may be implemented aspart of the system 400 or the platform 500 shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. Thecommunication circuitry 700 may be communicatively coupled (e.g.,directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, such as antennas 702a-c. In some examples, the communication circuitry 700 includes or iscommunicatively coupled to dedicated receive chains, processors, orradios, or combinations of them, for multiple RATs (e.g., a firstreceive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR). Forexample, as shown in FIG. 7, the communication circuitry 700 includes amodem 710 and a modem 720, which may correspond to or be a part of thebaseband circuitry 410 and 510 of FIGS. 4 and 5. The modem 710 may beconfigured for communications according to a first RAT, such as LTE orLTE-A, and the modem 720 may be configured for communications accordingto a second RAT, such as 5G NR.

The modem 710 includes one or more processors 712 and a memory 716 incommunication with the processors 712. The modem 710 is in communicationwith a radio frequency (RF) front end 730, which may correspond to or bea part of to the RFEM 415 and 515 of FIGS. 4 and 5. The RF front end 730may include circuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals. Forexample, the RF front end 730 includes receive circuitry (RX) 732 andtransmit circuitry (TX) 734. In some examples, the receive circuitry 732is in communication with a DL front end 750, which may include circuitryfor receiving radio signals from the antenna 702 a. A switch 770 mayselectively couple the modem 710 to an UL front end 772, which mayinclude circuitry for transmitting radio signals using the antenna 702c.

Similarly, the modem 720 includes one or more processors 722 and amemory 726 in communication with the processors 722. The modem 720 is incommunication with an RF front end 740, which may correspond to or be apart of to the RFEM 415 and 515 of FIGS. 4 and 5. The RF front end 740may include circuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals. Forexample, the RF front end 740 includes receive circuitry 742 andtransmit circuitry 744. In some examples, the receive circuitry 742 isin communication with a DL front end 760, which may include circuitryfor receiving radio signals from the antenna 702 b. The switch 770 mayselectively couple the modem 720 to the UL front end 772 fortransmitting radio signals using the antenna 702 c.

The modem 710 may include hardware and software components for timedivision multiplexing UL data (e.g., for NSA NR operations), as well asthe various other techniques described herein. The processors 712 mayinclude one or more processing elements configured to implement variousfeatures described herein, such as by executing program instructionsstored on the memory 716 (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readablememory medium). In some examples, the processor 712 may be configured asa programmable hardware element, such as a FPGA or an ASIC. In someexamples, the processors 712 may include one or more ICs that areconfigured to perform the functions of processors 712. For example, eachIC may include circuitry configured to perform the functions ofprocessors 712.

The modem 720 may include hardware and software components for timedivision multiplexing UL data (e.g., for NSA NR operations), as well asthe various other techniques described herein. The processors 722 mayinclude one or more processing elements configured to implement variousfeatures described herein, such as by executing instructions stored onthe memory 726 (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium).In some examples, the processor 722 may be configured as a programmablehardware element, such as a FPGA or an ASIC. In some examples, theprocessor 722 may include one or more ICs that are configured to performthe functions of processors 722. For example, each IC may includecircuitry configured to perform the functions of processors 522.

FIG. 8 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented ina wireless communication device. In particular, FIG. 8 includes anarrangement 800 showing interconnections between various protocollayers/entities. The following description of FIG. 8 is provided forvarious protocol layers and entities that operate in conjunction withthe 5G NR system standards and the LTE system standards, but some or allof the aspects of FIG. 8 may be applicable to other wirelesscommunication network systems as well.

The protocol layers of arrangement 800 may include one or more of PHY810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840, SDAP 847, RRC 855, and NAS layer 857,in addition to other higher layer functions not illustrated. Theprotocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g.,items 859, 856, 850, 849, 845, 835, 825, and 815 in FIG. 8) that mayprovide communication between two or more protocol layers.

The PHY 810 may transmit and receive physical layer signals 805 that maybe received from or transmitted to one or more other communicationdevices. The physical layer signals 805 may include one or more physicalchannels, such as those discussed herein. The PHY 810 may furtherperform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), powercontrol, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handoverpurposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as the RRC855. The PHY 810 may still further perform error detection on thetransport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding and decodingof the transport channels, modulation and demodulation of physicalchannels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels,and MIMO antenna processing. In some examples, an instance of PHY 810may process requests from and provide indications to an instance of MAC820 using one or more PHY-SAP 815. In some examples, requests andindications communicated using PHY-SAP 815 may comprise one or moretransport channels.

Instance(s) of MAC 820 may process requests from, and provideindications to, an instance of RLC 830 using one or more MAC-SAPs 825.These requests and indications communicated using the MAC-SAP 825 mayinclude one or more logical channels. The MAC 820 may perform mappingbetween the logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MACSDUs from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TBs) to bedelivered to PHY 810 using the transport channels, de-multiplexing MACSDUs to one or more logical channels from TBs delivered from the PHY 810using transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, schedulinginformation reporting, error correction through HARQ, and logicalchannel prioritization.

Instance(s) of RLC 830 may process requests from and provide indicationsto an instance of PDCP 840 using one or more radio link control serviceaccess points (RLC-SAP) 835. These requests and indications communicatedusing RLC-SAP 835 may include one or more RLC channels. The RLC 830 mayoperate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: TransparentMode™, Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC 830may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), errorcorrection through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers,and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AMdata transfers. The RLC 830 may also execute re-segmentation of RLC dataPDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM datatransfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discardRLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AMdata transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment.

Instance(s) of PDCP 840 may process requests from and provideindications to instance(s) of RRC 855 or instance(s) of SDAP 847, orboth, using one or more packet data convergence protocol service accesspoints (PDCP-SAP) 845. These requests and indications communicated usingPDCP-SAP 845 may include one or more radio bearers. The PDCP 840 mayexecute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCPSequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUsat re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layerSDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLCAM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protectionand integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-baseddiscard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering,deciphering, integrity protection, or integrity verification).

Instance(s) of SDAP 847 may process requests from and provideindications to one or more higher layer protocol entities using one ormore SDAP-SAP 849. These requests and indications communicated usingSDAP-SAP 849 may include one or more QoS flows. The SDAP 847 may map QoSflows to data radio bearers (DRBs), and vice versa, and may also markQoS flow identifiers (QFIs) in DL and UL packets. A single SDAP entity847 may be configured for an individual PDU session. In the ULdirection, the NG-RAN 110 may control the mapping of QoS Flows to DRB(s)in two different ways, reflective mapping or explicit mapping. Forreflective mapping, the SDAP 847 of a UE 101 may monitor the QFIs of theDL packets for each DRB, and may apply the same mapping for packetsflowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP 847 of the UE 101 maymap the UL packets belonging to the QoS flows(s) corresponding to theQoS flow ID(s) and PDU session observed in the DL packets for that DRB.To enable reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 310 may mark DL packets overthe Uu interface with a QoS flow ID. The explicit mapping may involvethe RRC 855 configuring the SDAP 847 with an explicit QoS flow to DRBmapping rule, which may be stored and followed by the SDAP 847. In someexamples, the SDAP 847 may only be used in NR implementations and maynot be used in LTE implementations.

The RRC 855 may configure, using one or more management service accesspoints (M-SAP), aspects of one or more protocol layers, which mayinclude one or more instances of PHY 810, MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840 andSDAP 847. In some examples, an instance of RRC 855 may process requestsfrom and provide indications to one or more NAS entities 857 using oneor more RRC-SAPs 856. The main services and functions of the RRC 855 mayinclude broadcast of system information (e.g., included in masterinformation blocks (MIBs) or system information blocks (SIBs) related tothe NAS), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum(AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRCconnection between the UE 101 and RAN 110 (e.g., RRC connection paging,RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRCconnection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance andrelease of point to point Radio Bearers, security functions includingkey management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UEmeasurement reporting. The MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or moreinformation elements, which may each comprise individual data fields ordata structures.

The NAS 857 may form the highest stratum of the control plane betweenthe UE 101 and the AMF 321. The NAS 857 may support the mobility of theUEs 101 and the session management procedures to establish and maintainIP connectivity between the UE 101 and a P-GW in LTE systems.

In some examples, one or more protocol entities of arrangement 800 maybe implemented in UEs 101, RAN nodes 111, AMF 321 in NR implementationsor MME 221 in LTE implementations, UPF 302 in NR implementations or S-GW222 and P-GW 223 in LTE implementations, or the like to be used forcontrol plane or user plane communications protocol stack between theaforementioned devices. In some examples, one or more protocol entitiesthat may be implemented in one or more of UE 101, gNB 111, AMF 321,among others, may communicate with a respective peer protocol entitythat may be implemented in or on another device using the services ofrespective lower layer protocol entities to perform such communication.In some examples, a gNB-CU of the gNB 111 may host the RRC 855, SDAP847, and PDCP 840 of the gNB that controls the operation of one or moregNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of the gNB 111 may each host the RLC 830, MAC820, and PHY 810 of the gNB 111.

In some examples, a control plane protocol stack may include, in orderfrom highest layer to lowest layer, NAS 857, RRC 855, PDCP 840, RLC 830,MAC 820, and PHY 810. In this example, upper layers 860 may be built ontop of the NAS 857, which includes an IP layer 861, an SCTP 862, and anapplication layer signaling protocol (AP) 863.

In some examples, such as NR implementations, the AP 863 may be an NGapplication protocol layer (NGAP or NG-AP) 863 for the NG interface 113defined between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321, or the AP 863 maybe an Xn application protocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 863 for the Xninterface 112 that is defined between two or more RAN nodes 111.

The NG-AP 863 may support the functions of the NG interface 113 and maycomprise elementary procedures (EPs). An NG-AP EP may be a unit ofinteraction between the NG-RAN node 111 and the AMF 321. The NG-AP 863services may include two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to a UE 101) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to the whole NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 111and AMF 321). These services may include functions such as, but notlimited to: a paging function for the sending of paging requests toNG-RAN nodes 111 involved in a particular paging area; a UE contextmanagement function for allowing the AMF 321 to establish, modify, orrelease a UE context in the AMF 321 and the NG-RAN node 111; a mobilityfunction for UEs 101 in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HOs tosupport mobility within NG-RAN and inter-system HOs to support mobilityfrom/to EPS systems; a NAS Signaling Transport function for transportingor rerouting NAS messages between UE 101 and AMF 321; a NAS nodeselection function for determining an association between the AMF 321and the UE 101; NG interface management function(s) for setting up theNG interface and monitoring for errors over the NG interface; a warningmessage transmission function for providing means to transfer warningmessages using NG interface or cancel ongoing broadcast of warningmessages; a configuration transfer function for requesting andtransferring of RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information orperformance measurement (PM) data) between two RAN nodes 111 using CN120, or combinations of them, among others.

The XnAP 863 may support the functions of the Xn interface 112 and maycomprise XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. TheXnAP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UEmobility within the NG RAN 111 (or E-UTRAN 210), such as handoverpreparation and cancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures,UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN pagingprocedures, or dual connectivity related procedures, among others. TheXnAP global procedures may comprise procedures that are not related to aspecific UE 101, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RANupdate procedures, or cell activation procedures, among others.

In LTE implementations, the AP 863 may be an S1 Application Protocollayer (S1-AP) 863 for the S1 interface 113 defined between an E-UTRANnode 111 and an MME, or the AP 863 may be an X2 application protocollayer (X2AP or X2-AP) 863 for the X2 interface 112 that is definedbetween two or more E-UTRAN nodes 111.

The S1 Application Protocol layer (S1-AP) 863 may support the functionsof the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, theS1-AP may include S1-AP EPs. An S1-AP EP may be a unit of interactionbetween the E-UTRAN node 111 and an MME 221 within an LTE CN 120. TheS1-AP 863 services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services andnon UE-associated services. These services perform functions including,but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UEcapability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RANInformation Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

The X2AP 863 may support the functions of the X2 interface 112 and mayinclude X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. TheX2AP basic mobility procedures may include procedures used to handle UEmobility within the E-UTRAN 120, such as handover preparation andcancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures, UE contextretrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, ordual connectivity related procedures, among others. The X2AP globalprocedures may comprise procedures that are not related to a specific UE101, such as X2 interface setup and reset procedures, load indicationprocedures, error indication procedures, or cell activation procedures,among others.

The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 862 mayprovide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP orXnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTEimplementations). The SCTP 862 may ensure reliable delivery of signalingmessages between the RAN node 111 and the AMF 321/MME 221 based in parton the IP protocol, supported by the IP 861. The Internet Protocol layer(IP) 861 may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. In some implementations the IP layer 861 may usepoint-to-point transmission to deliver and convey PDUs. In this regard,the RAN node 111 may include L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g.,wired or wireless) with the MME/AMF to exchange information.

In some examples, a user plane protocol stack may include, in order fromhighest layer to lowest layer, SDAP 847, PDCP 840, RLC 830, MAC 820, andPHY 810. The user plane protocol stack may be used for communicationbetween the UE 101, the RAN node 111, and UPF 302 in NR implementationsor an S-GW 222 and P-GW 223 in LTE implementations. In this example,upper layers 851 may be built on top of the SDAP 847, and may include auser datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer (UDP/IP) 852, aGeneral Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the userplane layer (GTP-U) 853, and a User Plane PDU layer (UP PDU) 863.

The transport network layer 854 (also referred to as a “transportlayer”) may be built on IP transport, and the GTP-U 853 may be used ontop of the UDP/IP layer 852 (comprising a UDP layer and IP layer) tocarry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the“Internet layer”) may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packetsin any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example.

The GTP-U 853 may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS corenetwork and between the radio access network and the core network. Theuser data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPPformats, for example. The UDP/IP 852 may provide checksums for dataintegrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the sourceand destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected dataflows. The RAN node 111 and the S-GW 222 may utilize an S1-U interfaceto exchange user plane data using a protocol stack comprising an L1layer (e.g., PHY 810), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 820, RLC 830, PDCP 840,and/or SDAP 847), the UDP/IP layer 852, and the GTP-U 853. The S-GW 222and the P-GW 223 may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user planedata using a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer, an L2 layer, theUDP/IP layer 852, and the GTP-U 853. As discussed previously, NASprotocols may support the mobility of the UE 101 and the sessionmanagement procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity betweenthe UE 101 and the P-GW 223.

Moreover, although not shown by FIG. 8, an application layer may bepresent above the AP 863 and/or the transport network layer 854. Theapplication layer may be a layer in which a user of the UE 101, RAN node111, or other network element interacts with software applications beingexecuted, for example, by application circuitry 405 or applicationcircuitry 505, respectively. The application layer may also provide oneor more interfaces for software applications to interact withcommunications systems of the UE 101 or RAN node 111, such as thebaseband circuitry 610. In some examples, the IP layer or theapplication layer, or both, may provide the same or similarfunctionality as layers 5-7, or portions thereof, of the Open SystemsInterconnection (OSI) model (e.g., OSI Layer 7—the application layer,OSI Layer 6—the presentation layer, and OSI Layer 5—the session layer).

FIG. 9 illustrates components of a core network 220. The components ofthe CN 220 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physicalnodes and may include components to read and execute instructions from amachine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitorymachine-readable storage medium). In some examples, the components of CN320 may be implemented in a same or similar manner as discussed hereinwith regard to the components of CN 220. In some examples, NFV isutilized to virtualize any or all of the above-described network nodefunctions using executable instructions stored in one or morecomputer-readable storage mediums, as described in further detail below.A logical instantiation of the CN 220 may be referred to as a networkslice 901, and individual logical instantiations of the CN 220 mayprovide specific network capabilities and network characteristics. Alogical instantiation of a portion of the CN 220 may be referred to as anetwork sub-slice 902 (e.g., the network sub-slice 902 is shown toinclude the P-GW 223 and the PCRF 226).

As used herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the likemay refer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer toa concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code. A network instance may refer to informationidentifying a domain, which may be used for traffic detection androuting in case of different IP domains or overlapping IP addresses. Anetwork slice instance may refer to a set of network functions (NFs)instances and the resources (e.g., compute, storage, and networkingresources) required to deploy the network slice.

With respect to 5G systems (see, e.g., FIG. 3), a network slice mayinclude a RAN part and a CN part. The support of network slicing relieson the principle that traffic for different slices is handled bydifferent PDU sessions. The network can realize the different networkslices by scheduling or by providing different L1/L2 configurations, orboth. The UE 301 provides assistance information for network sliceselection in an appropriate RRC message if it has been provided by NAS.While the network can support large number of slices, the UE need notsupport more than 8 slices simultaneously in some examples.

A network slice may include the CN 320 control plane and user plane NFs,NG-RANs 310 in a serving PLMN, and a N3IWF functions in the servingPLMN. Individual network slices may have different S-NSSAI or differentSSTs, or both. NSSAI includes one or more S-NSSAIs, and each networkslice is uniquely identified by an S-NSSAI. Network slices may differfor supported features and network functions optimizations. In someexamples, multiple network slice instances may deliver the same servicesor features but for different groups of UEs 301 (e.g., enterpriseusers). For example, individual network slices may deliver differentcommitted service(s) or may be dedicated to a particular customer orenterprise, or both. In this example, each network slice may havedifferent S-NSSAIs with the same SST but with different slicedifferentiators. Additionally, a single UE may be served with one ormore network slice instances simultaneously using a 5G AN, and the UEmay be associated with eight different S-NSSAIs. Moreover, an AMF 321instance serving an individual UE 301 may belong to each of the networkslice instances serving that UE.

Network slicing in the NG-RAN 310 involves RAN slice awareness. RANslice awareness includes differentiated handling of traffic fordifferent network slices, which have been pre-configured. Sliceawareness in the NG-RAN 310 is introduced at the PDU session level byindicating the S-NSSAI corresponding to a PDU session in all signalingthat includes PDU session resource information. How the NG-RAN 310supports the slice enabling in terms of NG-RAN functions (e.g., the setof network functions that comprise each slice) is implementationdependent. The NG-RAN 310 selects the RAN part of the network sliceusing assistance information provided by the UE 301 or the 5GC 320,which unambiguously identifies one or more of the pre-configured networkslices in the PLMN. The NG-RAN 310 also supports resource management andpolicy enforcement between slices as per SLAs. A single NG-RAN node maysupport multiple slices, and the NG-RAN 310 may also apply anappropriate RRM policy for the SLA in place to each supported slice. TheNG-RAN 310 may also support QoS differentiation within a slice.

The NG-RAN 310 may also use the UE assistance information for theselection of an AMF 321 during an initial attach, if available. TheNG-RAN 310 uses the assistance information for routing the initial NASto an AMF 321. If the NG-RAN 310 is unable to select an AMF 321 usingthe assistance information, or the UE 301 does not provide any suchinformation, the NG-RAN 310 sends the NAS signaling to a default AMF321, which may be among a pool of AMFs 321. For subsequent accesses, theUE 301 provides a temp ID, which is assigned to the UE 301 by the 5GC320, to enable the NG-RAN 310 to route the NAS message to theappropriate AMF 321 as long as the temp ID is valid. The NG-RAN 310 isaware of, and can reach, the AMF 321 that is associated with the tempID. Otherwise, the method for initial attach applies.

The NG-RAN 310 supports resource isolation between slices. NG-RAN 310resource isolation may be achieved by means of RRM policies andprotection mechanisms that should avoid that shortage of sharedresources if one slice breaks the service level agreement for anotherslice. In some examples, it is possible to fully dedicate NG-RAN 310resources to a certain slice. How NG-RAN 310 supports resource isolationis implementation dependent.

Some slices may be available only in part of the network. Awareness inthe NG-RAN 310 of the slices supported in the cells of its neighbors maybe beneficial for inter-frequency mobility in connected mode. The sliceavailability may not change within the UE's registration area. TheNG-RAN 310 and the 5GC 320 are responsible to handle a service requestfor a slice that may or may not be available in a given area. Admissionor rejection of access to a slice may depend on factors such as supportfor the slice, availability of resources, support of the requestedservice by NG-RAN 310.

The UE 301 may be associated with multiple network slicessimultaneously. In case the UE 301 is associated with multiple slicessimultaneously, only one signaling connection is maintained, and forintra-frequency cell reselection, the UE 301 tries to camp on the bestcell. For inter-frequency cell reselection, dedicated priorities can beused to control the frequency on which the UE 301 camps. The 5GC 320 isto validate that the UE 301 has the rights to access a network slice.Prior to receiving an Initial Context Setup Request message, the NG-RAN310 may be allowed to apply some provisional or local policies based onawareness of a particular slice that the UE 301 is requesting to access.During the initial context setup, the NG-RAN 310 is informed of theslice for which resources are being requested.

NFV architectures and infrastructures may be used to virtualize one ormore NFs, alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physicalresources comprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware,storage hardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be usedto execute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPCcomponents and functions.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating components of a system 1000 tosupport NFV. The system 1000 is illustrated as including a virtualizedinfrastructure manager (VIM) 1002, a network function virtualizationinfrastructure (NFVI) 1004, a virtualized network function manager(VNFM) 1006, virtualized network functions (VNFs) 1008, an elementmanager (EM) 1010, a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO)1012, and a network manager (NM) 1014.

The VIM 1002 manages the resources of the NFVI 1004. The NFVI 1004 caninclude physical or virtual resources and applications (includinghypervisors) used to execute the system 1000. The VIM 1002 may managethe life cycle of virtual resources with the NFVI 1004 (e.g., creation,maintenance, and tear down of VMs associated with one or more physicalresources), track VM instances, track performance, fault and security ofVM instances and associated physical resources, and expose VM instancesand associated physical resources to other management systems.

The VNFM 1006 may manage the VNFs 1008. The VNFs 1008 may be used toexecute, for example, EPC components and functions. The VNFM 1006 maymanage the life cycle of the VNFs 1008 and track performance, fault andsecurity of the virtual aspects of VNFs 1008. The EM 1010 may track theperformance, fault and security of the functional aspects of VNFs 1008.The tracking data from the VNFM 1006 and the EM 1010 may comprise, forexample, PM data used by the VIM 1002 or the NFVI 1004. Both the VNFM1006 and the EM 1010 can scale up or down the quantity of VNFs of thesystem 1000.

The NFVO 1012 may coordinate, authorize, release and engage resources ofthe NFVI 1004 in order to provide the requested service (e.g., toexecute an EPC function, component, or slice). The NM 1014 may provide apackage of end-user functions with the responsibility for the managementof a network, which may include network elements with VNFs,non-virtualized network functions, or both (management of the VNFs mayoccur using the EM 1010).

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating components for readinginstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any oneor more of the techniques described herein. Specifically, FIG. 11 showsa diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1100 including oneor more processors (or processor cores) 1110, one or more memory orstorage devices 1120, and one or more communication resources 1130, eachof which may be communicatively coupled using a bus 1140. Forimplementations where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, ahypervisor 1102 may be executed to provide an execution environment forone or more network slices or sub-slices to utilize the hardwareresources 1100.

The processors 1110 may include a processor 1112 and a processor 1114.The processor(s) 1110 may be, for example, a central processing unit(CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complexinstruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit(GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, an ASIC, an FPGA, aradio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor (includingthose discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 1120 may include main memory, disk storage,or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 1120 mayinclude, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or nonvolatilememory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random accessmemory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flashmemory, or solid-state storage, or combinations of them, among others.

The communication resources 1130 may include interconnection or networkinterface components or other suitable devices to communicate with oneor more peripheral devices 1104 or one or more databases 1106 using anetwork 1108. For example, the communication resources 1130 may includewired communication components (e.g., for coupling using USB), cellularcommunication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® LowEnergy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communicationcomponents.

Instructions 1150 may comprise software, a program, an application, anapplet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of theprocessors 1110 to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein. The instructions 1150 may reside, completely orpartially, within at least one of the processors 1110 (e.g., within theprocessor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 1120, or anysuitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of theinstructions 1150 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1100 fromany combination of the peripheral devices 1104 or the databases 1106.Accordingly, the memory of processors 1110, the memory/storage devices1120, the peripheral devices 1104, and the databases 1106 are examplesof computer-readable and machine-readable media.

Turning to FIG. 12, an example of a PDCCH search space set 1200monitoring periodicity is shown. In NR, the concept of PDCCH monitoringperiodicity is defined per search space set and is not configured at theControl Resource Set (CORESET) level. The PDCCH monitoring periodicityis defined through two levels of configuration. A first level includesthe search space monitoring periodicity in terms of the number of slots.The second level includes monitoring occasions defined in terms of thesymbols within slots. Particularly, the parameter“monitoringSlotPeriodicityAndOffset” is defined within the PDCCH searchspace set configurations to configure the PDCCH monitoring periodicityand the offset at the slot-level granularity. Further, a parameter“monitoredSymbolsWithinSlot” is defined to configure the PDCCHmonitoring pattern within a slot, indicating first symbol of theCORESET. Every configured search space with a certain monitoringperiodicity, in terms of slots and starting symbols within the monitoredslots, is associated with a CORESET.

In a general aspect, the concept of monitoring duration (for which thelength is RRC configured, ranging from one up to (k_(s)−1), where k_(s)is the search space monitoring periodicity) has been further introducedto the search space 1200. The monitoring duration indicates a number ofconsecutive slots over which the one or more monitoring occasions occurfor the corresponding PDCCH common search space (CSS) in a slot repeat.Search space 1200 shows slots 1202 a, 1202 b, 1202 c, of slots 1202 a-eover which the SS monitoring duration 1204 occurs. Particularly, theduration defines the number of slots that a search space lasts in everyoccasion (e.g., at every period as given in amonitoringSlotPeriodicityAndOffset parameter). Generally, a UE does notmonitor PDCCH for the corresponding search space set for the next(k_(s)—monitoring duration) consecutive slots. The monitoring durationallows bursts and gaps of monitoring, in terms of number of subsequentslots, all the way up to the search space monitoring periodicity 1206.In other words, the purpose of such window is to increase the durationof the PDCCH monitoring time in non-contiguous bursts to cater to burstytraffic profiles while enabling a trade-off against UE power consumptionby use of larger monitoring periodicity values.

In some implementations, support of multiple PDCCH monitoring occasionswithin a slot is considered (in addition to the required PDCCHmonitoring occasion(s) in the first three symbols of a slot), as anoptional UE capability. For reference, refer to feature group (FG) 3-5bin the NR specification 3GPP TS 38.306 “User Equipment (UE) radio accesscapabilities (Release 15)” (hereinafter “Rel. 15”) for exact definitionand constraints.

In some aspects, a minimum time separation of a given number oforthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols is requiredbetween the start of two monitoring spans. Generally, each span is oflength up to a given number of consecutive OFDM symbols in which PDCCHis configured to be monitored. Further, certain downlink controlinformation (DCI) can be processed for the set of monitoring occasionswhich are within the same span, with limitations on the number ofdifferent start symbol indices of spans for all PDCCH monitoringoccasions per slot, and number of PDCCH monitoring occasions per slot.As such, the UE may also be configured with multiple monitoringoccasions beyond the first 3 symbols. Further, the layer-one controlinformation to be handled includes parallel triggering for unicast datatransmission (PDSCHs or PUSCHs), as well as common control and broadcastwith the group PDCCHs.

Once motivation behind supporting such capability is to maintain a capon the UE processing load for PDCCH monitoring over a given slot bycapping the number of PDCCHs the UE may expect within a slot duration.As such, the concept of monitoring span and span gap have beendeveloped, referring to certain monitoring opportunities where the UE isconfigured to monitor for PDCCH(s).

Generally, for PDCCH monitoring, the UE indicates its capability tomonitor for PDCCH multiple times within a slot while the UE requires atleast a gap of a certain number of symbols between the monitoring times.This capability imposes certain scheduling constraints, and is based onhow the UE's firmware can handle the control flow, e.g., in terms ofreceiving grants, and being able to perform the consequent processing. Apurpose of this capability definition is to place a cap on the UEprocessing demand, because without such a definition the UE would haveto handle control information flow arriving at any and every time withinthe slot.

Generally, ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) servicesintroduce additional requirements as well as additional traffic profilesand scheduling characteristics than those previously described. ThePDCCH monitoring enhancements subsequently described realize suchadaptations to achieve more flexibility in scheduling opportunities. Forexample, there can be foreseen use cases for Rel. 16 for which the Rel.15 requirements are not adequate. In some implementations, increasedcapabilities in numbers of blind decodings (BDs) or numbers of CCEs forchannel estimation can straightforwardly improve scheduling flexibility.However, increased capabilities in numbers of BDs or numbers of CCEsalso incur significant UE complexity and power consumption. Generally,in the methods described below, the UE is configured to dimension thecontrol processing in terms of potential PDCCH monitoring enhancements,such as in terms of the maximum numbers of BDs/CCEs for channelestimation. Thus, careful consideration is needed towards achieving anoptimal balance between scheduling flexibility and improved blockingperformance against UE complexity and power consumption. In this regard,solutions that facilitate appropriate trade-off between performance,power consumption, and device complexity should be pursued. Generally,the terminology “BDs/CCEs” is used in this description to imply numbersof BDs and/or numbers of non-overlapping CCEs. However, it is notnecessarily implied that the requirements on numbers of BDs and numbersof non-overlapping CCEs may be enhanced simultaneously or even followingthe same approaches/characterizations. In future releases of NRspecification, explicit limitation on the maximum number ofBDs/non-overlapping CCEs over shorter PDCCH monitoring durations than aslot will may be adopted. For example, duration of monitoring occasionand/or monitoring span, may be considered as the reference scale.

Generally, Rel-15 developments as part of UE capability FG 3-5b, did notconsider the aspects related to the maximum number of BDs/CCEs forchannel estimation, and such characterizations are still defined on aper slot basis (i.e., there is no relationship with respect to shorterdurations like the monitoring span, etc.). In this document aredisclosed various methods for defining, configuring, indicating, andapplying the concept of monitoring span, as well as the implications ofthe monitoring span concept in regard to defining the constraints on thenumber of blind-decoding and number of CCEs for channel estimation. The“monitoring span” definition does not need to exactly reuse what isdefined for FG #3-5b in Release 15, since the BD/CCE characterizationimposes a different problem compared to PDCCH monitoringcharacterization per FG #3-5b. Generally, unless mentioned otherwise,the examples related to PDCCH monitoring are applicable to differentduplex systems, such as FDD, TDD, bandwidth parts with differentnumerologies, such as 15 kHz, 30 kHz, 60 kHz, 120 kHz etc., licensed andunlicensed spectrum access, etc.

Monitoring Span for Defining BD/CCE Requirements: Definition, Duration,Configuration/Indication

Each monitoring span can be considered of length up to a given number ofconsecutive OFDM symbols in which PDCCH may be configured to bemonitored. In an example, all PDCCHs that are associated with a span arefully contained within that span. Every PDCCH being monitored is alsopart of a span. There are different options to realize the start symboland duration of a span, as well as the start and duration of the PDCCHsassociated with a span. In Release 15 FG #3-5b, the start and durationof the PDCCHs associated with a span are determined per the applicableCORESET and search space configuration. Further, to avoid any ambiguitywhen a PDCCH may belong to more than one span (such as if a PDCCH isfully contained in more than one span), the PDCCH is considered as partof the span that has the smallest start symbol index among the spansfully containing the PDCCH.

In one embodiment, the monitoring spans are defined with respect to theslot boundary, e.g., every m symbols, with or without a certain gapbetween the start of two consecutive spans, where m can be any valueless than 14. In one example, m=2 or 3. However, such definition mayimpose unnecessary restrictions on potential starting symbols for PDCCHmonitoring occasions, possible combinations of CORESET durations, andtheir starting points. There may also exist issues with orphan symbolswhich do not fit in a span of certain duration, or cases wherein aCORESET crosses span boundaries, etc.

In an embodiment, every m symbol, can be marked as a potential spanstarting position. However, the first potential starting positionwithout any PDCCH monitoring, may trigger an override of such rule. Inone example, upon such triggering, m will be reduced by a certain value,and new potential starting positions are marked, so on and so forth.Generally, the spans may be defined with respect to PDCCH monitoringoccasions, such as the start of PDCCH monitoring occasions. As such, thefirst symbol of a span corresponds to a symbol in which the UE isconfigured to monitor a PDCCH. In one example, the starting symbol ofthe span is defined to align with a starting symbol of a PDCCHmonitoring occasion configured to the UE. This realization allows tohave a span to include symbols in which PDCCH is not monitored—forinstance, for a span of duration 3 symbols, it is possible to have aconfiguration like ‘MOM’ where ‘M’ means monitoring of a one-symbolCORESET, and ‘0’ means no PDCCH monitoring in the symbol. Further, forthis option, the maximum number of spans within a slot duration can bespecified on a per SCS basis, or configured to the UE via higher layers,or reported by the UE as a UE capability information. In addition, as inRel-15, the UE may indicate the maximum span duration and thecorresponding minimum gap (in number of OFDM symbols) necessary betweenstarting symbols of two consecutive spans.

Generally, monitoring spans, when used to characterize BD/CCErequirements, should not be overlapping, although “candidate spans” thatcould be used as intermediate steps to determine the final assignment ofspans based on actual configuration of PDCCH monitoring (e.g.,configured PDCCH search space sets and their monitoring occasions (MOs))may overlap. However, if the assigned spans are constrained to notoverlap, and if all PDCCHs that are associated with a span are fullycontained within that span, then the resulting set of constraints can bevery similar to the case wherein spans are defined based on slotboundary and symbol indices and thus result in additional restrictionson candidate PDCCH locations within the slot.

To alleviate such restrictions, a PDCCH CORESET may map beyond a spanwhen the first symbol of the CORESET (corresponding to the configured MOfor the search space set mapped to the CORESET) is contained within thespan of the given number of symbols, as long as the PDCCH does not crossthe slot boundary. The numbers of BDs/CCEs corresponding to such a PDCCHMO are counted as part of the span that contains the first symbol of theCORESET (such as the symbol corresponding to the MO).

In some implementations, durations of spans can be configured as nowdescribed. In one example, the duration is configured to the UE viahigher layer signaling. In an extended example, such configuration isbased on the sub-carrier spacing (SCS) of the DL bandwidth part (BWP).Other alternatives may include having a gNB configure some candidateset(s) of the span starting positions and span duration values fromwhich down-selection may occur by a UE. Some default values may be setsuch as for back-to-back spans partitioning the whole slot.

Generally, as previously described, there is a trade-off between overallUE dimensioning (if these requirements are translated back to theslot-level scale), and effectiveness in typical URLLC-type ofscheduling. Generally, in this situation, there are probably a fewmonitoring candidates are needed, that are distributed over the slotduration. New capability characterization should efficiently accommodateuse cases with non-uniform and “triggered” monitoring occasions, whichis possible using flexible span configurations as previously disclosedearlier. Particularly, gNB configuration of span parameters, andhigher-layer signaling to UE, allows handling of dynamically triggeredDCI monitoring as well.

The maximum duration of a monitoring span may be fixed as a certainnumber of OFDM symbols. In one example, as in Release 15 FG #3-5b, themaximum span length can be specified as 3 OFDM symbols, as all UEs areable to receive PDCCHs based on the mandatory PDCCH capabilities overthe first three symbols of the slot.

Definitions of BD/CCE Requirements and Possible Constraints

Generally, the requirements on the number of BDs/CCEs can be defined(e.g., by a gNB) in terms of the monitoring spans. As such, while thetotal number of non-overlapping CCEs (and/or BDs) per slot may increase(e.g., in comparison with Rel-15), a cap can be defined on what the UEmay expect per a certain number of symbols by defining the requirementson number of CCEs/BDs over that certain duration. Particularly, suchapproach limits the total number of Layer 1 control information the UEneeds to handle at a time, or over a certain period of time, in terms ofthe number of CCEs/BDs. For example, the monitoring spans used fordefining the #BDs/CCEs requirements, follow the definitions disclosedearlier in current disclosure. In another example, span definition mayfollow that of Release 15 FG #3-5b.

Co-Existence with the Current Requirements

When defining the #BDs/CCEs requirements, over a shorter duration than aslot as previously described (e.g., over monitoring span, monitoringoccasions, etc.), the new constraints co-exist and harmonize withslot-level constraints already available as now described. For example,the slot-level constraints are over-written once the newer constraints(as disclosed earlier) are configured. In another example, the UEindicates its capability and there is a predefined mapping between thecapability and the requirements. Generally, given that the Rel-15signaling is available to let the UE indicate its capability togetherwith the span duration and span gaps, such indication from UEfacilitates the overall characterization of number of BDs/CCEs. UEcapability signaling can be extended such that the UE may also report acapability of handling a maximum number of BDs/CCEs either over eachspan or over the entire slot duration.

In some implementations, to report a capability of handling a maximumnumber of BDs/CCEs over the entire slot duration, the UE can indicatethe capability similar to indication of BDs/CCEs scaling for carrieraggregation (CA) scenarios. The UE indicates one or more (one each forBDs and CCEs) multiplicative factor(s) of the slot-level nominal valuesof BDs/CCEs from Rel-15, defined on a per-numerology basis. The per-spanBDs/CCEs limits are determined as the total number of CCEs/BDs in theslot divided by the maximum number of spans in the slot. Morespecifically, the total number of CCEs/BDs in the slot is the maximumnumber of non-overlapping CCEs (or BDs respectively). The maximum numberof spans in the slot is the maximum number of non-overlapping spans thatmay be supported within the slot duration. In an example, the totalnumber of CCEs/BDs in the slot can be equal to f*X_R15, where ‘f’ is themultiplicative factor and X_R15 is the number of BDs (or non-overlappingCCEs) per slot according to Rel-15 specifications for the correspondingnumerology. In some implementations, the multiplicative factors reportedby the UE as UE capability may be traded off with the reported PDCCHmonitoring capabilities reported for CA configurations. For example, themultiplicative factors for requirements on total numbers of BDs/CCEs perslot when configured with enhanced PDCCH monitoring may be non-integervalues.

In some implementations, the requirements on BDs/CCEs for enhanced PDCCHmonitoring just described are used to specify the requirements for eachnumerology instead of being reported by the UE by the capabilitysignaling framework. The UE indicates capability of enhanced PDCCHmonitoring and possibly capability with respect to span durations andspan-gaps as previously described.

Generally, the new requirements and constraints may apply to PDCCHs inUE-SS and/or CSS. For example, some pre-defined mapping is definedbetween the span location within the slot, and the certain searchspace(s) to be monitored. In another example, the new constraints onlyapply to PDCCHs monitored in UE-SS. In another example, the newconstraints apply to all PDCCHs monitored in both UE-SS as well as CSS.In another example, the new constraints apply to both UE-SS as well assub-set(s) of CSS types, e.g., Type 3 CSS, and/or Type 1 CSS withdedicated RRC configuration as well as Type 3 CSS, and/or Type0, OA and2 CSS, etc.). The implications with respect to the dropping rules willbe subsequently discussed.

In some implementations similar scheduling flexibility is maintained asincluded in Rel-15 (e.g., scheduling of common control messages). Toachieve scheduling flexibility, the minimum number of BDs/CCEs that a UEis expected to support within a span or sub-slot corresponding to thefirst two or three symbols of a slot may be different from the numbersof BDs/CCEs in subsequent spans/sub-slots within a slot. For example,the minimum numbers of BDs/CCEs within the span that corresponds to thefirst two or three symbols of a slot are same as the slot-levelrequirements in Rel-15. Additional per-slot requirements are defined inaddition to the requirements on per-span (for other spans in the slot).Such additional per-slot requirements may be defined using the mechanismdescribed previously regarding indication of multiplicative factors todetermine new slot-level requirements. In this case, the numbers ofBDs/CCEs in the first span in the slot (within first two or threesymbols in the slot) are subtracted from the overall slot-level limits,and the result equally divided into subsequent spans within the slot.

In some implementations, in there is special handling of spancorresponding to the first two to three symbols of a slot. In that case,the earlier-described embodiment of counting PDCCH candidatescorresponding to a MO of a search space that has PDCCH starting withinthe span but ending beyond the first two or three symbols of the slot donot apply. Instead, such BDs/CCEs are counted as part of the next span.Alternatively, the above-described counting approach of accounting forthe BDs/CCEs for a MO based on which span the starting symbol of the MObelongs still applies to the first span in the slot.

Prioritization/Dropping Rules to Maintain UE BD and CCE Requirements

Generally, in Release 15 specifications, mapping and dropping rules havebeen defined such that if, in a slot, the number of PDCCH blind decoding(BD) candidates or the number of CCEs for channel estimation exceed thecorresponding minimum requirements, the UE drops the current and allsubsequent search space sets configured to be monitored in that slot.Generally, the mapping of the search space sets follow in ascendingorder of the search space set ID (SS_ID). This can result in an entiresearch space set being dropped, even if a single candidate in the searchspace set results in the total number of BDs or CCEs for channelestimation to exceed the corresponding specified minimum requirements.In some cases, this causes excessive dropping of search space sets,especially for cases wherein search space sets may be configured with arelatively large number of BD (blind decoding) candidates or BDcandidates with large aggregation levels (ALs)—at least the latter beingrelatively typical in case of scheduling of traffic with low latencyand/or high reliability demands like URLLC use cases.

Generally, if the constraints are defined on a sub-slot time duration,then the overbooking and dropping rules may also be impacted and need tobe reconsidered. Considering the potential overlaps between themonitoring occasions, if characterization of maximum number of BDs/CCEsfor channel estimation is defined based on the monitoring occasions,then appropriate UE behavior and dropping/prioritization rules need tobe specified in case of overlaps. In one example, if characterization ofmaximum number of BDs/CCEs for channel estimation is defined based onthe monitoring occasions, in case of overlaps between the monitoringoccasions, the UE is expected to prioritize the monitoring occasionswithin certain symbols, (such as the first three symbols).

Similarly, methods for prioritization and dropping based on themonitoring spans within a slot may be defined. The case is considered inwhich some candidates within a sub-slot (or monitoring span) may bedropped. In one example, similar to the Rel. 15 design previouslydiscussed, the dropping candidates can be some candidates within asearch space or at search space set-level. Generally, they are notdropped at a slot-level but at a sub-slot/span-level. In anotherexample, dropping may be defined based on the DCI types transmitted inthe SS within a monitoring span or sub-slot duration. In anotherexample, the dropping rule can be based on the location of themonitoring spans within a slot for the search space set. The mapping toPDCCH candidates can follow the order of a particular sequence of spanswithin a slot for the search space set. For example, the order cancorrespond to the spans within the first three symbols of a slot. Inanother example, those within every N symbols (N={2, 3, 7 . . . }, N<14)are prioritized for a given search space set.

In some implementations, the dropping rules can be defined based on thesearch space (SS) type within which a UE monitors PDCCH candidates. Forexample, the SS type can include CSS and/or UE-SS, depending on how thenew constraints apply to PDCCHs in UE-SS and/or CSS, as previouslydescribed, and/or based on DCI format(s). Accordingly, the correspondingSS(s) may be prioritized over other SSs. For example, the correspondingSS(s) may be exempted from dropping rules unless all candidates fromother SSs are already dropped and the PDCCH BD candidates or the numberof CCEs for channel estimation still exceed the corresponding minimumrequirements. If some pre-defined mapping is defined between the spanlocation within the slot, and the certain search space(s) to bemonitored, the dropping rules defined based on the span location withinthe slot, also implies dropping rules associated to monitored SSs.

Implication of the New Definition of Monitoring Span into DynamicSignaling of Monitoring Window

There are different options to expand these methods of configuring themonitoring duration. For example, the monitoring duration can be basedon dynamic signaling to adapt monitoring window/periodicity, flexiblebitmap configuring each slot within one monitoring period as enabled ordisabled, slots being identified as monitoring a reduced set ofoccasions, and so forth. One option is to characterize adjusted set ofmonitoring occasions within a slot, in terms of monitoring spans andspan gaps within the slot. For example, the UE indicates capability tosupport such characterization. Such characterization enables simplerindication and less signaling overhead. In another example, instead ofturning “ON” or “OFF” of the monitoring for all slot using themonitoring duration parameter or a bitmap of length equal to themonitoring periodicity, some slots may be identified as monitoring a setof occasions over certain subset of all monitoring span(s) in the slot.In another example, such slots may be identified through the location of0s within the bitmap, carried by the search space set configuration, bydedicated RRC signaling. In another example, there is no restriction toa slot duration being the minimum granularity for indicated monitoringconfigurations via monitoring duration or bitmap options, as such(UE-specific) configuration can be applicable and extended for durationsof monitoring spans.

Turning to FIG. 13, a flow diagram shows a process 1300 for enhancedPDCCH monitoring. The process 1300 for PDCCH monitoring by userequipment (UE) includes receiving (1302) a specification indicative of amonitoring pattern for a search space set including a plurality ofslots. The monitoring pattern includes one or more monitoring spanswithin the search space set. Each of the one or more monitoring spanscan be associated with a set of parameters defining that particularmonitoring span. The process 1300 includes selecting (1304) at least onemonitoring span of the one or more monitoring spans. The processincludes assigning (1306) the UE to monitor the at least one monitoringspan. The process 1300 includes performing 1308, by the UE, PDCCHmonitoring during the selected at least one monitoring span.

Generally, each of the monitoring spans is indicative of a monitoringpattern of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbolswithin a slot. In some implementations, a PDCCH control resource set(CORESET) is mapped beyond the selected at least one monitoring span,wherein a first symbol of the CORESET corresponding to a configuredmonitoring occasion (MO) for the search space set is included within themonitoring span, and wherein the PDCCH does not cross a boundary of theslot. In some implementations, a number of blind decodings (BDs) orcontrol channel elements (CCEs) corresponding to the PDCCH MO is countedas part of the monitoring span including the first symbol correspondingto the MO.

Generally, the monitoring pattern specifies a monitoring gap of aparticular number of OFDM symbols with the slot. In someimplementations, a maximum duration of a monitoring span is defined bythe set of parameters for that monitoring span, and wherein the maximumduration is a fixed number of OFDM symbols. For example, the maximumduration of the monitoring span is 3 OFDM symbols.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for the one or moremonitoring spans specifies one or both of non-uniform monitoringoccasions (MOs) and triggered MOs. In some implementations, the set ofparameters for each the one or more monitoring spans is configured tolimit a number of CCEs, BDs, or both CCEs and BDs during the PDCCHmonitoring of a slot to below a maximum number.

In some implementations, the maximum number of CCEs, BDs or both CCEsand BDs during the PDCCH monitoring of the slot is based on a maximumnumber of non-overlapping CCEs or BDs and a maximum number ofnon-overlapping monitoring spans supported by the UE within a durationof the slot.

In some implementations, the specification further comprises a minimumnumber of BDs or CCEs for the slot, and wherein the BDs or CCEs aredistributed among the one or more monitoring spans in the slot.

In some implementations, the set of parameters for each of the one ormore monitoring spans define the respective monitoring span with respectto a slot boundary, and wherein a first symbol of the particularmonitoring span corresponds to a symbol in which the UE is configured tomonitor PDCCH. In some implementations, the set of parameters for theparticular monitoring span include a dropping rule that is based on alocation of the particular monitoring span within a slot of the searchspace set. For example, the set of parameters can assign a highestpriority to a monitoring span within a first three symbols of the slot.In some implementations, the set of parameters for the particularmonitoring span includes a dropping rule that is based on a type of thesearch space set, and wherein the type of the search space set is one ofcommon search space (CSS) or UE-search space (UE-SS).

In some implementations, the process 1300 includes receiving thespecification from a next generation node (gNB). In someimplementations, the process 1300 includes configuring the monitoringfor an ultra-reliable and low latency (URLLC) service.

In an aspect, a process (such as process 1300) is for new radio (NR)communications and includes a technique to define, configure/indicate,and apply the concept of PDCCH monitoring span (in the context of PDCCHmonitoring occasions) for a UE. Generally, it is possible to define therequirements on the number of BDs/CCEs in terms of the monitoring spans.As such, while the total number of non-overlapping CCEs (and/or BDs) perslot may increase compared to Rel-15, a cap can then be defined on whatthe UE may expect per a certain number of symbols, by defining therequirements on number of CCEs/BDs over that certain duration.Particularly, such approach limits the total number of Layer 1 controlinformation the UE needs to handle at a time, or over a certain periodof time, in terms of the number of CCEs/BDs.

In some implementations, the monitoring spans are defined with respectto the slot boundary. For example, every m symbols, with or without acertain gap between the start of two consecutive spans, where m can beany value less than 14. In one example, m=2 or 3. In someimplementations, every m symbol, can be marked as a potential spanstarting position. However, the first potential starting positionwithout any PDCCH monitoring, may trigger an override of such rule. Inone example, upon such triggering, m will be reduced by a certain value,and new potential starting positions are marked.

In an aspect, a maximum number of spans within a slot duration can bespecified on a per SCS basis, or configured to the UE via higher layers,or reported by the UE as a UE capability information.

In some implementations, a PDCCH CORESET may map beyond a span as longas the first symbol of the CORESET (corresponding to the configured MOfor the search space set mapped to the CORESET) is contained within thespan of Y symbols, as long as the PDCCH does not cross the slotboundary.

In a general aspect, numbers of BDs/CCEs corresponding to such a PDCCHMO are counted as part of the span that contains the first symbol of theCORESET, such as the symbol corresponding to the MO.

In a general aspect, durations of monitoring spans are configured to theUE via higher layer signaling. In an example, such configuration isbased on the sub-carrier spacing (SCS) of the DL bandwidth part (BWP).

In a general aspect, a gNB configures some candidate set(s) of spanstarting position and span duration values to be down-selected from.Also, some default values may be set, e.g., including back-to-back spanspartitioning the whole slot. In another example, span definition mayfollow as disclosed in [2], Section 2.1. In another example, the spandefinition may follow that of Release 15 FG #3-5b.

In some implementations, slot-level constraints are over-written oncethe newer constraints are configured.

In a general aspect, the UE indicates its capability and there is apredefined mapping between the capability and the requirements. Forexample, given that the Rel-15 signaling is available to let the UEindicate its capability together with the span duration and span gaps,such indication from UE facilitates the overall characterization ofnumber of BDs/CCEs. Further, such capability signaling can be extendedsuch that the UE may also report its capability of handling a maximumnumber of BDs/CCEs either over each span or over the entire slotduration.

In a general aspect, the capability can be indicated similar to theBDs/CCEs scaling for carrier aggregation (CA) scenarios wherein the UEindicates one or more (one each for BDs and CCEs) multiplicativefactor(s) of the slot-level nominal values of BDs/CCEs from Rel-15,defined on a per-numerology basis. Then, the per-span BDs/CCEs limitscan be determined as X_total_in_slot/maxNumMaxSpans_in_slot, whereX_total_in_slot is the maximum number of non-overlapping CCEs (or BDsrespectively) and maxNumSpans_in_slot is the maximum number ofnon-overlapping spans that may be supported within the slot duration.Here, X_total_in_slot=f*X_R15, where ‘f’ is the multiplicative factorand X_R15 is the number of BDs (or non-overlapping CCEs) per slotaccording to Rel-15 specifications for the corresponding numerology.Furthermore, the multiplicative factors reported by the UE as UEcapability may be traded off with the reported PDCCH monitoringcapabilities reported for CA configurations. In another example, themultiplicative factors for requirements on total numbers of BDs/CCEs perslot when configured with enhanced PDCCH monitoring may be non-integer.

In some implementations, the aforementioned characterization forrequirements on BDs/CCEs for enhanced PDCCH monitoring is used tospecify the requirements for each numerology, instead of being reportedby the UE via the capability signaling framework. The UE only indicatescapability of enhanced PDCCH monitoring and possibly capability w.r.t.span durations and span-gaps.

In some implementations, pre-defined mapping is defined between the spanlocation within the slot, and the certain search space(s) to bemonitored. In some implementations, the new constraints only apply toPDCCHs monitored in UE-S S. In some implementations, the new constraintsapply to all PDCCHs monitored in both UE-SS as well as CSS. In someimplementations, the new constraints apply to both UE-SS as well assub-set(s) of CSS types, e.g., Type 3 CSS, and/or Type 1 CSS withdedicated RRC configuration as well as Type 3 CSS, and/or Type0, OA and2 CSS, etc.).

In a general aspect, a minimum numbers of BDs/CCEs that a UE is expectedto support within a span or sub-slot corresponding to the first two orthree symbols of a slot may be different from the numbers of BDs/CCEs insubsequent spans/sub-slots within a slot. In some implementations, theminimum numbers of BDs/CCEs within the span that corresponds to thefirst two or three symbols of a slot are same as the slot-levelrequirements in Rel-15, but additional per-slot requirements are definedin addition to the requirements on per-span (for other spans in theslot). Such additional per-slot requirements may be defined using themechanism described above regarding indication of multiplicative factorsto determine new slot-level requirements. In this case, the numbers ofBDs/CCEs in the first span in the slot (within first two or threesymbols in the slot) are subtracted from the overall slot-level limits,and the result equally divided into subsequent spans within the slot.

In some implementations, for such a case with special handling of spancorresponding to the first two to three symbols of a slot, theearlier-described embodiment of counting PDCCH candidates correspondingto a MO of a search space that has PDCCH starting within the span butending beyond the first two or three symbols of the slot do not apply.Instead, such BDs/CCEs are counted as part of the next span.Alternatively, the above-described counting approach of accounting forthe BDs/CCEs for a MO based on which span the starting symbol of the MObelongs to may still apply to the first span in the slot.

In some implementations, the process defines prioritization and droppingbased on the monitoring spans within a slot may be defined, alsoconsidering the case, wherein some candidates within a sub-slot (ormonitoring span) may be dropped. In an example, similar to Release 15design reviewed above, the dropping candidates can be some candidateswithin a search space or at search space set-level, but they are notdropped at a slot-level but at a sub-slot/span-level. In an example,dropping may be defined based on the DCI types transmitted in the SSwithin a monitoring span or sub-slot duration. In an example, thedropping rule can be based on the location of the monitoring spanswithin a slot for the search space set. For example, the mapping toPDCCH candidates follows the order of a particular sequence of spanswithin a slot for the search space set, e.g., the spans within the firstthree symbols of a slot, or those within every N symbols (N={2, 3, 7, .. . }, N<14) are prioritized for a given search space set. In anexample, the dropping rules can be defined based on the search space(SS) type within which a UE monitors PDCCH candidates, i.e., CSS and/orUE-SS, depending on how the new constraints apply to PDCCHs in UE-SSand/or CSS, as disclosed earlier in this disclosure and/or based on DCIformat(s). Accordingly, the corresponding SS(s) may be prioritized overother SSs. In one example, the corresponding SS(s) may be exempted fromdropping rules unless all candidates from other SSs are already droppedand the PDCCH BD candidates or the number of CCEs for channel estimationstill exceed the corresponding minimum requirements. Further, in casesome pre-defined mapping is defined between the span location within theslot, and the certain search space(s) to be monitored, the droppingrules defined based on the span location within the slot, also impliesdropping rules associated to monitored SSs.

In some implementations, the new definition of monitoring span hasimplications into dynamic signaling of monitoring window. For example,adjusted set of monitoring occasions within a slot, is characterized interms of monitoring spans and span gaps within the slot. The UEindicates capability to support such characterization. Suchcharacterization enables simpler indication and less signaling overhead.Instead of turning “ON” or “OFF” of the monitoring for all slot usingthe monitoring duration parameter or a bitmap of length equal to themonitoring periodicity, some slots may be identified as monitoring a setof occasions over certain subset of all monitoring span(s) in the slot.In an example, such slots may be identified through the location of 0swithin the bitmap (carried by the search space set configuration, viadedicated RRC signaling)

In a general aspect, there is no restriction to a slot duration beingthe minimum granularity for indicated monitoring configurations viamonitoring duration or bitmap options, as such (UE-specific)configuration can be applicable and extended for durations of monitoringspans

In some implementations, the process can be performed based on one ormore non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions tocause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one ormore processors of the electronic device, to perform one or moreelements of the process.

In some examples, at least one of the components set forth in one ormore of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or moreoperations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth in theexample section below. For example, the baseband circuitry as describedabove in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may beconfigured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples setforth below. In some examples, circuitry associated with a UE, basestation, network element, or other component described above inconnection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configuredto operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forthbelow in the example section.

It is well understood that the use of personally identifiableinformation should follow privacy policies and practices that aregenerally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmentalrequirements for maintaining the privacy of users. In particular,personally identifiable information data should be managed and handledso as to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use,and the nature of authorized use should be clearly indicated to users.

The methods described here may be implemented in software, hardware, ora combination thereof, in different implementations. In addition, theorder of the blocks of the methods may be changed, and various elementsmay be added, reordered, combined, omitted, modified, and the like.Various modifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to aperson skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. Thevarious implementations described here are meant to be illustrative andnot limiting. Many variations, modifications, additions, andimprovements are possible. Accordingly, plural instances may be providedfor components described here as a single instance. Boundaries betweenvarious components, operations and data stores are somewhat arbitrary,and particular operations are illustrated in the context of specificillustrative configurations. Other allocations of functionality areenvisioned and may fall within the scope of claims that follow. Finally,structures and functionality presented as discrete components in theexample configurations may be implemented as a combined structure orcomponent.

The following terms and definitions may be applicable to the examplesdescribed herein.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includeshardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, aprocessor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared,dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC),a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array(FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), ahigh-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC),digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to providethe described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry mayexecute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at leastsome of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also referto a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination ofcircuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the programcode used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In theseembodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code maybe referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carryingout a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording,storing, and/or transferring digital data. The term “processorcircuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or morebaseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), asingle-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, aquad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing orotherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as programcode, software modules, and/or functional processes. The terms“application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be consideredsynonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.”

The term “interface circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between twoor more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may referto one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces,peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or thelike.

The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device withradio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user ofnetwork resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment”or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as,client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobileunit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station,access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurableradio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, theterm “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wireddevice or any computing device including a wireless communicationsinterface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical orvirtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired orwireless communication network services. The term “network element” maybe considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer,networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch,hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway,server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any typeinterconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or componentsthereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” mayrefer to various components of a computer that are communicativelycoupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or“system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiplecomputing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another andconfigured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used hereinrefers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g.,software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide aspecific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machineimage to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizesor emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide aspecific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtualdevice, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment,and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, suchas computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPUtime, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardwaretime or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports ornetwork sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage,storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or thelike. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/ornetwork resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A“virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or networkresources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application,device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communicationresource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computerdevices/systems via a communications network. The term “systemresources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services,and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources maybe considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects orservices, accessible through a server where such system resources resideon a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium,either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or adata stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalentto “communications channel,” “data communications channel,”“transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,”“data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequencycarrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or mediumthrough which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” asused herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT forthe purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used hereinrefers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivativesthereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or moreelements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another,may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other butstill cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one ormore other elements are coupled or connected between the elements thatare said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” maymean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another.The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elementsmay be in contact with one another by a means of communication includingthrough a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wirelesscommunication channel or ink, and/or the like.

The term “information element” refers to a structural element containingone or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of aninformation element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configurationconfigured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

The term “SSB” refers to an SS/PBCH block.

The term “a “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on theprimary frequency, in which the UE either performs the initialconnection establishment procedure or initiates the connectionre-establishment procedure.

The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UEperforms random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Syncprocedure for DC operation.

The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radioresources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cellscomprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UEconfigured with DC.

The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cellcomprising of the primary cell.

The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cellscomprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED configured with CA/DC.

The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell ofthe SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers tothe Pcell.

1. A method for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring byuser equipment (UE), the method comprising: receiving a specificationindicative of a monitoring pattern for a search space set including aplurality of slots, the monitoring pattern including one or moremonitoring spans within the search space set, each of the one or moremonitoring spans being associated with a set of parameters defining thatparticular monitoring span; selecting at least one monitoring span ofthe one or more monitoring spans; assigning the UE to monitor the atleast one monitoring span; and performing, by the UE, PDCCH monitoringduring the selected at least one monitoring span.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein each of the monitoring spans is indicative of a monitoringpattern of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbolswithin a slot.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein a PDCCH controlresource set (CORESET) is mapped beyond the selected at least onemonitoring span, wherein a first symbol of the CORESET corresponding toa configured monitoring occasion (MO) for the search space set isincluded within the monitoring span, and wherein the PDCCH does notcross a boundary of the slot.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein a numberof blind decodings (BDs) or control channel elements (CCEs)corresponding to the PDCCH MO is counted as part of the monitoring spanincluding the first symbol corresponding to the MO.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the monitoring pattern specifies a monitoring gap of aparticular number of OFDM symbols with the slot.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein a maximum duration of a monitoring span is defined by the setof parameters for that monitoring span, and wherein the maximum durationis a fixed number of OFDM symbols.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein themaximum duration of the monitoring span is 3 OFDM symbols.
 8. The methodof claim 1, wherein the set of parameters for the one or more monitoringspans specifies one or both of non-uniform monitoring occasions (MOs)and triggered MOs.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the set ofparameters for each the one or more monitoring spans is configured tolimit a number of CCEs, BDs, or both CCEs and BDs during the PDCCHmonitoring of a slot to below a maximum number.
 10. The method of claim9, wherein the maximum number of CCEs, BDs or both CCEs and BDs duringthe PDCCH monitoring of the slot is based on a maximum number ofnon-overlapping CCEs or BDs and a maximum number of non-overlappingmonitoring spans supported by the UE within a duration of the slot. 11.The method of claim 1, wherein the specification further comprises aminimum number of BDs or CCEs for the slot, and wherein the BDs or CCEsare distributed among the one or more monitoring spans in the slot. 12.The method of claim 1, wherein the set of parameters for each of the oneor more monitoring spans define the respective monitoring span withrespect to a slot boundary, and wherein a first symbol of the particularmonitoring span corresponds to a symbol in which the UE is configured tomonitor PDCCH.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of parametersfor the particular monitoring span include a dropping rule that is basedon a location of the particular monitoring span within a slot of thesearch space set.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the set ofparameters assigns a highest priority to a monitoring span within afirst three symbols of the slot.
 15. The method of claim 1, wherein theset of parameters for the particular monitoring span includes a droppingrule that is based on a type of the search space set, and wherein thetype of the search space set is one of common search space (CSS) orUE-search space (UE-SS).
 16. The method of claim 1, further comprisingreceiving the specification from a next generation node (gNB).
 17. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising configuring the monitoring for anultra-reliable and low latency (URLLC) service.
 18. A user equipment(UE) device configured for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH)monitoring, the UE comprising: one or more processing devices; and amemory configured to store instructions that when executed cause the oneor more processing device to perform operations comprising: receiving aspecification indicative of a monitoring pattern for a search space setincluding a plurality of slots, the monitoring pattern including one ormore monitoring spans within the search space set, each of the one ormore monitoring spans being associated with a set of parameters definingthat particular monitoring span; selecting at least one monitoring spanof the one or more monitoring spans; assigning the at least onemonitoring span for monitoring; and performing, by the UE, PDCCHmonitoring during the selected at least one monitoring span.
 19. The UEdevice of claim 18, wherein each of the monitoring spans is indicativeof a monitoring pattern of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM) symbols within a slot.
 20. The UE device of claim 18, wherein aPDCCH control resource set (CORESET) is mapped beyond the selected atleast one monitoring span, wherein a first symbol of the CORESETcorresponding to a configured monitoring occasion (MO) for the searchspace set is included within the monitoring span, and wherein the PDCCHdoes not cross a boundary of the slot. 21-25. (canceled)